Imagine arranging, recording, and releasing an album with your peers in a little more than a year. Skyline Blues has done just that with their new album, We’re Golden. Released October 2025, We’re Golden features five a cappella songs and marks Skyline Blues’ ninth project released on Spotify since 2016. Easy to Love, the first song on the album, features soloist Ellie Westhoff (‘25).
“I think that Ellie’s solo in ‘Easy to Love‘ is really nice to listen to in the recording,” says choir teacher and Blues director Lyn Ciechanski. “It’s really smooth. It came out so nice and clean.”
More than a year of hard work goes into each Blues album, beginning with selecting songs and continuing through arranging, learning, and recording their music.
“It’s one thing to read music horizontally, but then when you actually are singing it,” says first-year member Shekinah Chikosi (‘28). “and you’re hearing other people, we like to call it reading vertically, which is where you can see all of the [vocal] parts and how they intertwine. …It’s probably my favorite thing–It’s so gorgeous.”
The second track is a cover of singer-songwriter FINNEAS’s song, Medieval.
“I did really like Medieval because it was a really interesting rhythm,” says Blues singer and collaborator Claire Hurley (‘26). “I do really like singing tenor, because I don’t always get to, so it’s sort of fun to sing a little lower.”
Along with soprano, alto, tenor, and bass parts, Blues includes vocal percussionists, who create the drum-like sounds heard on the album, and usually, a featured soloist.
“In about April we did a couple recording sessions and a couple in June,” says third-year Skyline Blues singer William Powers (‘26). “We recorded in West Bloomfield. It’s our sound engineer’s house. He has our studio in his basement. He takes all the raw recordings and he masters them; he makes the bass sound really bassy, and he makes the vocal percussion sound more like drums than a voice.”
The third song on the album, Happy to Be Sad, was more than just an auditory experience. The song was released on their youtube weeks before the rest of the album, with its own student-directed music video.
“In the little clip [from the music video] where we’re all gathered around the campfire… we had to act like we were being told a spooky story,” says Lily Toohey (‘26). “But it was really bright out, so that was a little acting challenge. Will was telling a fake story [about] ‘it [being] the day of ICHSA [International Championship of High School A Capella] semifinals and blah, blah, blah, they get there and somebody forgot their jacket.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God!’”
The ICHSA is the largest student a cappella competition, and takes place all around the U.S. The Skyline Blues’ 2025 ICHSA performance took home numerous awards, and features Eastward of Eden, the album’s fourth track.
“My favorite to listen to would probably be Eastward of Eden,” says Hurley. “We performed it for ICHSA, and it got the best soloist award there. I just think it was a great song. It was always fun to sing.”
In addition to the Outstanding Soloist Award, Eastward Of Eden also received awards for Outstanding Vocal Percussion and Outstanding Choreography. The final song on the album, Corners of the Earth, was vocally arranged by three different Blues singers: Leo Stone (‘25), Leif TenBrink (‘25), and Andrew Chen (‘25).
“I think Corners of the Earth, the last song, is going to be my one that I’m listening to the most,” says Cass O’Connell (‘26). “Because that song has a lot of emotions to it… when we were performing the set, that was the song that was most likely to make us cry, and did consistently. So listening to it is going to be a very emotional experience every time.”
At five songs and just under 15 minutes, We’re Golden makes a fantastic addition to Skyline Blues’ discography.
