Mindfield - The Price of a Wish (2025)

Chris McKay: The Price Of A Wish album was created in late June of 2024 when I was in excruciating pain that was so intense that I was dissociating. I was still getting over surgery that happened at the end of April and, frankly, the anesthetic haze hadn't worn off.

I'm sure the extreme pain was part of the haze as my body tried to release chemicals to blur things so that I didn't fully experience all that I was going through.

I had been working on a new album the old fashioned way. I needed to create and wanted to get back to it but, frankly, I couldn't even hold a guitar because of the level of pain. I didn't have the strength to even fret strings properly. I couldn't sing because of the blood being coughed up from damage done by a breathing tube during surgery.

I suffer from several conditions, but the connective tissue disorder(s) make it where my arteries, veins, or other important life-sustaining bits and pieces can tear easily. I'd already suffered from a cerebellar stroke (do not recommend) and a verterbral artery dissection.

The surgery in 2024 was complicated by these conditions, too. I was truly suffering. I was told I was "in the fight of my life" by doctors. I was back home, but having a hard time getting through.

I needed music. I went through my collection and didn't find what I needed. So, since I couldn't physically play, I used modern technology to make the psychedelic funk album The Other Side Of The Question first. I credited the album to Devine & Devine. It helped some. I said thing I'd never say under my own name. After I played it for friends, they convinced me that I should release it.

So I did.

Over the next couple of weeks, I created The Price Of A Wish under the Mindfield name. The same rules applied. If you like one album, you should really have the other. They are two sides of the same coin. They're both albums that came from pure pain and the need for connection and healing.

For The Price Of A Wish, I chose the light-prog side of music as that kind of music always relaxed me. I want there to be comfort in this album. Of course, the headspace I was in makes some of the album fall under the category of psychedelia, even if the trippiness wasn't coming from anything druggy. I wanted and needed to reach people who were also suffering and, maybe, lighten that suffering even a little bit.

Speaking of "little bit", my feline friend Little Bit joined me the night of June 15th, 2024 as I created "Radiate: Illuminate". This was unusual. She had suffered a lot. She lost her leg from cancer years before. We thought she was okay. On that night, she cuddled up to me and purred as "Radiate: Illuminate" came into being. She was there for every second. Every lyric and thought came in real time as she snoozed and communicated in her way. She was there when I was mixing and this song was one of the last songs she ever heard. She died early on the morning of June 30. Little Bit and I wrote that song together as far as I'm concerned.

Soon, I was back in the hospital, first with Covid, then I got the flu. Man, 2024 was hard, but somehow, I got through it. I am past my life expectancy for my health problems now, but who cares? We do what we can.

The Price Of A Wish was never intended for everyone. I needed it. Since it didn't exist, I had to make it. And now? You can just drop the needle or hit play.

Every word, thought, idea, sound, and production choice was mine, so I am to blame. As for me? I'm glad this album exists and that this technology appeared for the first time in human history right at the moment it was needed. If you enjoy the album, note that it is being released because of my wife Manda McKay. Because of Manda and a few friends who cared and encouraged me when caring and encouraging were the greatest possible healers, this music is now tangible.

I hope the music resonates with you on some level. I hope you can feel, as I do, that these songs showed up when they were needed. I hope you find the songs on The Price Of A Wish over-the-top, crazy, vulnerable, relaxing and, yes, silly at times. Because this album is all of those things. Take it for what it is, not how it is.

Most of all, I hope you can feel that these songs are honest (maybe to a fault) and that they came from a place of need, longing, and forced perspective. The Price Of A Wish is a record for survivors.

This album is also whatever you think it is. That's as it should be. I know how important this music was to my own survival and healing. The only thing left that I can do is make sure that, should anyone else need these songs, they are there. I'm very grateful that you have found them and, perhaps, vice versa. 

Is this the price of your wish?