I can finally say it—Digital Masquerade is here. This project has been two years in the making, and I’ve lived inside these songs since the fall of 2023. I ended up writing and recording 50 tracks, and from those, I picked 14 that best captured what I wanted to say right now.
The title comes from the world we’re all swimming in these days. Social media, filters, likes, and masks we put on to fit in. Half the time, we don’t even know what’s real anymore. That tension—between what’s true and what’s curated—runs through the album. Some songs lean heavier and raw, some are fun and poppy, and others sit somewhere in between. They’re a mix of personal and fictional, but all of them are me trying to figure out how to live honestly in the middle of all this noise.
One song I’m especially proud of is What Does It Mean, which I cowrote with my friend Paul Beckermann. It’s built around the imagery of a solar eclipse and how relationships shift in moments of awe and uncertainty. Then there are tracks like Might Be Trouble, Oopses and Mistakes, Click Bait, and of course, Digital Masquerade itself—each one exploring a different corner of this world of masks and mirrors.
The album is out now as a pay what you want download and stream (minimum $5) here: Digital Masquerade on Even. Your support means more than I can say. Buying the album helps me keep making music and videos—it’s one of the few ways indie artists like me can really sustain the work, since streaming doesn’t pay much of anything.
If you want to see more of the behind-the-scenes process, I’ve been posting videos on my Chad Shank Music channel, and over on At-Home Songwriting you can watch me break down how songs like Might Be Trouble and Click Bait came together.
Thanks for sticking with me on this ride. I hope these songs give you something real to hold onto, especially in a world that can feel like it’s all surface.