I like to do this thing where I talk to my childhood selves. I close my eyes, and there’s me at eight years old, telling my friend not to worry about the fact that I scraped my knee up bad falling off my bike: I don’t want to be a burden. Then I see my sixteen-year-old self fretting about his long-distance girlfriend leaving him for her old boyfriend. Finally, there’s me at twenty-five, realizing the life choice I’m about to make is a big mistake.
But this isn’t schizophrenia, and it’s not abnormal: Everyone talks with their past selves, whether they admit it or not. Often, folks might imagine they can just pick up the phone, dial a number through the time-space continuum, and transmit some sage advice to themselves. That’s the crux of Mindy Gledhill’s collection of tracks called The Phone Booth Sessions, which released its first volume in September 2024, and its second volume on March 11, 2026.
Gledhill has released music since 2004, putting out her own songs and collaborating with others (such as her feature on Kaskade’s 2011 album Fire & Ice). The Phone Booth Sessions chronicles Gledhill’s internal conversations with her younger self, exploring her feelings from growing up in Northern California, being involved with the LDS Church (which she has long since left), and striving throughout her younger years to make a career in the arts.
The result – between both volumes of The Phone Booth Sessions – is a work in which Gledhill finds her art and her life at genuine peace. In this moment of respite, Gledhill can offer herself words of calm, speaking through the receiver to a more vulnerable, more volatile version of herself. For example, above a soft piano on Vol. 1’s “Long Distance Lullabye”, she sings:
“I’m reaching through time, here on the other side,
To sing you these words, to offer you my long distance lullabye”.
Themes of vulnerability – as well as self-acceptance, honesty, and healing – flow throughout The Phone Booth Sessions as Gledhill addresses her younger self’s experiences and emotions. Often, processing those old and deep-seated feelings takes time and concentration, like solving a Magic Eye puzzle in a children’s magazine. “Hidden Pictures” reflects on that notion of understanding the unknowable forces at work to help everything come together in time, even if things start from a place of hurt:
“There’s more than meets the eye to the fabric of your life;
the needles in your heart are sewing stitches in disguise.”
Much of Gledhill’s output on The Phone Booth Sessions consists of just her voice and a small smattering of instruments. “Livin’ The Dream” is Gledhill’s layered vocals with a steel-string guitar, a soft drum set, a subdued glockenspiel, and some delightful whistling to symbolize the joy of reaching a beautiful and accomplished point in life, even if some of the old vulnerable feelings still linger. The sparse instrumentation puts Gledhill’s words front and center.
But when Gledhill wants to rock out a bit harder, the vocals remain fresh and emotional while the music builds around them. On “I Think I Understand”, Gledhill remembers the struggles of trying to be everything for everyone, and the pain comes through in a driving beat and crescendo that cuts to the heartstrings. (At least for this chronic people-pleaser, it sure did.)
It’s very easy to make comparisons to Maggie Rogers, Lizzy McAlpine, or Taylor Swift (at least, pre-The Life Of A Showgirl), but Gledhill is in a league of her own: She covers more musical ground in subtle ways, and takes cues from the current tastes to blend with her own brand of songwriting that ranges from introspective and subdued (“Stained Glass Heart”, “Punctured Lungs”) to indietronica-adjacent (“Prismatic”, “Paint Your Lips Red”), the latter taking from Gledhill’s work on more pop-oriented tracks in her career. Some tracks fall in-between, such as “Maybe Major Tom”, “Little Miss Moon Boots”, and “Pleased to Meet Me”. The Phone Booth Sessions covers Gledhill’s two decades of output, along with the many years of musical passion before her first release.
The second volume of The Phone Booth Sessions continues Gledhill’s culmination of catharsis, addressing herself as an adolescent where the first volume saw her speaking to her inner child. Where Vol. 1 was softer and filled with more toy instrument sounds and gentler voices, Vol. 2 breaks out into rougher patterns, edges, and angles that represent the awkwardness of growing up. But Gledhill navigates those sounds with ease, creating tracks which neither attack nor judge herself or anyone else for their actions or emotions during their most tumultuous years. Instead, she sits with them, listens, and doesn’t try to force understanding. She lets the emotions bloom into the music, and from there, the songs take form with maturity and confidence.
Whether Vol. 2 ends The Phone Booth Sessions remains to be seen: Vol. 1 came at the twentieth anniversary of Gledhill’s first album, and Vol. 2 followed it two years later. But if and when Vol. 3 makes its appearance, one wonders which version of herself Gledhill will call, and what kind of song she’ll sing to whoever’s on the other end of the line.
Fun fact, if I can take a personal moment in a public article: I’m publishing this on my birthday. I turn 35 years old today. I know my best years still lay ahead of me, and while the world can’t stop burning, I feel quite content with the road I’m taking. It doesn’t do anyone any good to dote on the past, and God knows I’ve made too many collect calls to years gone by. But these days, I don’t pick up the phone to focus on regrets or fears or to tell myself to say or do things I should have. I wait on the line for a bit, let them ask who’s calling a second time, and then go, “Hey kid. You’ll be fine.” And then I hang up and go about my day. And that’s okay.
Take a listen to “Hidden Pictures” from The Phone Booth Sessions, Vol. 2 below, and stream the other tracks from both volumes of The Phone Booth Sessions wherever you get your music.
Written by Will Sisskind
