Chicago singer-songwriter Max Subar laid down the bones of Anything Could Be, his debut album, in a house on the shore of a frozen lake in Wisconsin. Subar returned to the sonic and spiritual landscape he’d cultivated during the initial ten day session, remaining present in that moment by working when he could truly occupy its heart. Most of the additional sessions that add texture and color to the album were recorded in Subar’s home studio, in the same house where Case Oats, the Casey Gomez-Walker-led outfit in which Subar plays guitar, recorded their 2025 debut Last Missouri Exit. His brother, Sam Subar, played drums. Further instrumentation was provided by Case Oats bandmates Spencer Tweedy (drums on “I Never” and “Way Up”), Jason Ashworth (upright bass), and Scott Daniel (violin), as well as frequent collaborators Chet Zenor (electric guitar), Kelly Hannemann (piano), and Sarah Weddle (vibraphone, organ, and electric piano).The arrangements that took shape are generous and illuminative, giving flesh to the bones of Anything Could Be’s live guitar and vocal takes without sacrificing their spontaneity. “Performing no more than a few takes of these parts was crucial to keep the songs from ever feeling laborious, tired, or overworked,” says Subar. “If I couldn’t get it in about three takes, something wasn’t right. Maybe the part was too busy. Maybe it was my approach. Whatever it meant, I took it as a sign to move on.”The result of this process is a mesmerizing, open-hearted debut that grows with the listener, rewarding time and close attention. Title track and lead single “Anything Could Be” is an invitation to meet Subar on this wavelength, his voice invoking the memory of a dream while his guitar gently pulls him through its logic, arriving at the desire for freedom, openness, and growth that animates the record. On “Like You’ve Known It,” the arrangement recedes into the sound of windchimes and waves breaking on the shore, an organic pulse that bears the song out into the water. His use of pedal steel on songs like “See Saw” allows him to stretch time, following its undulation to a stunning moment of witness where what’s stirred to life is nothing less than a once-stagnant spirit, a long-simmering breakthrough that comes to fruition, at last, on “As The Weather,” where his voice rises to meet that breakthrough with grace and gratitude for what he has weathered. Anything Could Be offers the listener both the transformative space in which the album was shaped, and a portrait of the artist, and person that artist became in making it.Its 11 songs are imbued with what the poet Adrienne Rich called “a wild patience,” a radical stillness that is, itself, a journey towards consciousness, peace, and self-awareness. It makes no promises about what’s next. Just the same, it leaves you in breathless anticipation for what that may be, so long as it stirs Subar to pick up his guitar and play through it as he did this chapter of his life.
