The Mynabirds

But for Burhenn, who performs as The Mynabirds, returning to music wasn’t an intentional comeback so much as an organic recalibration, a slow and intentional rediscovery of what she calls “the medicine” at the heart of songwriting.

For seven years, Burhenn applied her creative efforts to her own production company and set The Mynabirds aside. It was a necessary exercise to step away from music entirely, to allow herself to heal from the toxicity of the modern music industry and to find a healthier way forward—even if it took her in a completely different direction.

Burhenn's re-entry isn't about reclaiming a former life. It's about reframing what it means to make art at all. With a new album titled It’s Okay To Go Back If You Keep Moving Forward, Burhenn is doing exactly that by returning to the work with a renewed sense of purpose.

Analogue: You’ve said you had to get out of this whole industry before, for the sake of your own health. How is re-entry for you? Do you feel a sense of like, ‘I’m older and wiser, so now I can do this in a different way’?

Laura: So I've called my new record It's Okay To Go Back If You Keep Moving Forward, and I think that's the mantra of it all, which is that I realized that music for me is medicine. I started writing songs in my teens as a means of therapy, and I credit it for my survival in those depressed years.

What’s interesting, and I feel like a Buddhist would tell you that this is what happens is, if you don't fix the thing, the thing within yourself, you will keep running into the same problem. You can dress a problem up in different clothes, which for me, all the music industry is the problem.

And then it was like, suddenly, I was being worked to death by, you know, the music video industry. And I was like, ‘Well, that's the problem.’ And it's like, ‘No, what is going on inside of myself that I need to change so that I'm not participating in my own devaluation and destruction?’

And this is not victim-blaming. Of course, there are forces that are just harmful, and we need to call them out and name them and stop them. But I think for me, I needed to remember the medicine of music. I need to divorce myself from this harmful culture of celebrity, this harmful culture of capitalist success. I need to be able to name something else that is true success.

I’m grateful for coming back to something I learned, which is what led me to be on tour last fall, since we were gearing up for another election. I had been on tour in the fall of 2016, which was that election year when Trump got elected the first time, and I remember thinking, ‘Okay, what is important is that in each small town, people are doing good work every day, no matter who is in power.’ And that's what I need to remember,

So I did that tour in 2016, and I thought it was time to do it again. It's time to lift up local nonprofits who are doing great work and saying, ‘Okay, how can we support them?’ Because it's the small things that matter most. So I hope that I can live an example that shows that even having some small career that is supported by people—like Undertow, who are the real deal—and finding those communities and strengthening those, that’s literally how we change the world. We can't change everything, but we can change ourselves, and then we can deeply connect with other people and say, ‘All right, what do we want to do today? What's the one thing we can do today?’

Analogue: Did you set music completely aside?

Laura: Yeah. I had. We got invited in 2019 to play a festival up in Bay City, Michigan, which has turned out to be one of my favorite cities to play. I love all the small towns that most people don't go to, because I feel like people are so grateful and excited. So we did that tour, but I had not written a single song between Be Here Now in 2017 and last fall, so it was seven full years.

I was like, ‘I don't think this is writer's block.’ I’ve always had this idea that your subconscious is working on things secretly. I trust it, you know? But I thought, ‘Well, maybe I've already sung what I need to sing. Maybe I have nothing else to say.’ I joked that I was retired, especially on film sets. I was like, ‘I used to do this, but I'm done. I'm out. I'm out of business.’

But what was really interesting was that the first song that came to me was “Ramona, Patron Saint of Silence”. I was sitting at my piano, and I had a copy of Audre Lorde’s Your Silence Will Not Protect You on the bench beside me. I had just bought it and thought, ‘Well, shit, I've lost my voice. I need to be inspired to so I'm going to read this Audre Lorde book and remember that I need to speak because our voices are power.’ And so on.

Suddenly, the song started tumbling out of me. It was basically a prayer of gratitude for the silence that I feel held me and protected me for those seven years. We have those four Fs when it comes to human survival: Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And I think silence is really a big part of that freezing—that in a moment of deep trauma, it can literally save your life. So that moment to pause, that moment of negative space, suddenly gave all the sound a lot more meaning. I feel really grateful for that.

Analogue: When there's been such a definite before and after, a breaking point and then starting up again with the music, can you tell a difference in what you’re bringing to it all?

Laura: Yes, I can. I really can. I think number one is the timbre of my voice, which I think some people would say, ‘Oh, you've gotten older, your voice has changed.’ Of course, that happens.

But I think that there is a certain relaxed nature that I can feel and hear in my voice—that’s not trying to cut above the din, you know? It’s not trying to cut through the chaos and say, ‘Look at me. Listen to me. I've got something to say!’

It's more about having time to reconnect with the lineage of voice. That is the thread that goes through human history that I think a lot of artists tap into, and I feel incredibly inspired by Nina Simone or Tori Amos—those were kind of my two queens in my teen years. I was raised on the civil rights era, and so everybody who used their voice—and that includes Martin Luther King Jr., you know?—to help literally save the human species. To me, that’s the part that I've tapped into. It's not about selling records. It's not about entertaining. It's about asking, ‘What are the therapeutic ways that we can look at what's happening, call out what's wrong, and then work together to change it?’ And so that feels really different to me. I don't know if anybody else will notice that. But just to feel like I’ve realigned myself in the way that I needed to, that’s the important thing.

Analogue: Can you tell a difference in terms of craft?

Laura: In terms of what a song sounds like, I couldn't really speak to that. I'm not really trying to craft the craftiest song, you know? I'm not necessarily trying to make a beautiful chord progression that's really complicated in the way that maybe like Paul Simon would. I'm just trying to get the message out.

Analogue: Do you have guardrails in place that were not in place before?

Laura: Yes. But I mean, even now, I'll be honest: I’m terrified of putting these records out. It's really easy to think, ‘Oh, I’m not going to get a Pitchfork review on this record.” But it's also like, ‘How does Pitchfork exist right now?’ So when I think about guardrails, it's like, ‘What are my expectations for success? How can I acknowledge the ways in which I'm worried that I'm not succeeding, and then actively try to change my view of what success is?’

I had a friend who was meeting with a film distributor recently, and they said that a person can only have one of four intentions when they make something creative. it can be 1.) to make money, 2.) to further your career, 3.) to build community, or 4.) to change the world. If you're lucky, you intend one thing to happen and other things can fall out from that.

That was really helpful to me, because the reason I made this record was to build community. I have no false assumption that I'm going to make a bunch of money. Building community does change the world, but I’m not making something that is transformative, technologically or otherwise. Am I furthering my career? Maybe some people find out who I am. But building community with other people and talking about the lineage of musicians who make music as a means to help better the world—that’s what I'm doing.

Back to the title of the record, it’s helped me to know it's okay to go back if you keep moving forward. I have to keep going through that circular path every day, which is to sort of stop myself and say, ‘Okay, don't get ahead of yourself. Don't despair. What is actually good about this moment.’

It’s been so wonderful to have really meaningful conversations with people, like this conversation is so meaningful to me, and to be able to engage with others about how music is medicine. We each get a chance to really sit with that and think about the ways that we can also stop and care for ourselves, and therefore be able to care for others better.

Analogue: Going into 2026, you’re still busy with the production company, too?

Laura: Yes, I think it's a matter of trying to find a balance, so I have work that I'm still doing as a producer. My dream as a producer is to get into live events. Like, let’s talk about big concerts that maybe shifted the world's consciousness, like Brian Eno just did his concert for Palestine at Wembley Stadium. So I’m thinking in that vein, that vein of tradition. What are the ways in which we can use art, film, music, and dancing to bring people together and joyfully march us into a better era?

I really am so grateful that I've had these past few years to create that entity that can bring together a bunch of people to create something that's bigger than my own career. And Mynabirds will go on forever, because I need music. That's what I found out is that I need music to survive, and so I'll keep making music. So who knows what this will look like next?

VISIT: The Mynabirds