Biography

INDIE FOLK IN FRANCE If Simon & Garfunkel and Mac Demarco had a dinner party in their shared garden, Mackenzie would be at the head of the table. Originally from the United States, Mackenzie Leighton grew up in a small seaside town in Maine. After spending her childhood playing classical piano, she left Maine for New York at 18 and played in several folk, jazz, and indie-pop inspired bands, Mizuna and Strange Loops. In 2017, she arrived alone in Paris and launched her solo musical career, electric guitar in hand. With simplicity and precise songwriting, Mackenzie serenades her audiences with a voice like honey and her authenticity on stage. “Listening to her music is a shelter,” says Savage Thrills. Her sensibility falls in line with the tradition of folk singers like Joni Mitchell, while remaining modern in the style of Phoebe Bridgers or Julia Jacklin. She is an artist who lives and creates between cultures, mixing her folk roots with a richer and more modern instrumentation and surrounding herself with French musicians and producers. Mackenzie intimately reveals the reality of her expatriate life and pushes the boundaries of her own identity, writing songs in both French and English, mixing pop and folk. As Rolling Stone France says, Mackenzie Leighton "should put some sunshine in your weekend."