Each song on Cade Cur’s debut album, Mise En Genie, finds Keup’s narrators embodying various noxious male personae (hints of Harvey Weinstein/ Jerry Falwell Jr./ Trump and others) over disarmingly catchy production reminiscent of Lou Reed’s Transformer album.

The album was recorded at Keup’s White Star Sound studio (located on his farm outside of Charlottesville, VA) and was produced by Keup and Cade Cur bandmates, Adam Smith (Zen Mother) and Colin Killalea (Albert Hammond, Natalie Prass). Additional musicians included Tommy Crane (Port St. Willow), Frank LoCrasto (Cass McCombs, Parquet Courts), Daniel Clarke (Natalie Prass, War On Drugs), and John O’Reilly Jr. (fun.) with additional vocalists Sanders Bohlke (SVIBES) and Sleepwalkers’ Austin and Michael York. The project was mixed by Darrell Thorp (Radiohead, Beck), Danny Kalb (Beck) and Stewart Myers.

To create the album artwork, Keup enlisted the artist Tracy Maurice, known for her work as Arcade Fire’s creative director. Her cover art concept is based on the high-heeled shoe, and glass slipper in particular, as being symbolic of patriarchal ideas about women’s sexuality.