Meg Mac reached an impasse. As the Australian artist puts it, she had “a bit of a meltdown” when approaching her third album, forcing to her to rip all her ideas apart and start all over again.
Heading to the countryside in New South Wales, she began to build from the ground up. Putting her heart and soul into each note, what emerged is her most autobiographical work yet, daring in its riveting honesty.
What matters most, she says, is “to mean every word I sing, to not have anything in the back of my head when I’m singing where I don’t totally love it.”
Out now, ‘Matter Of Time’ fulfils that promise, with Meg Mac raising the levels in every respect, pushing herself lyrically, musically, and as an arranger. Here, she breaks down some of the key influences behind her new album…
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Enya – ‘Only Time‘
I went through an Enya phase during lockdown. I remember we’d finished ‘Is It Worth Being Sad’ and I kept sending more and more new backing vocal ideas to the Donuts. They ended up using like 5% of what I sent… I realise now it was overkill, I was just so obsessed with layering vocals!
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Gorillaz – ‘Kids With Guns’
I mean it’s just very cool. It feels so effortless. I wanted this energy on ‘On Your Mind’ for some reason.
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Bill Withers – ‘Ain’t No Sunshine‘
This seems like a really obvious choice because it’s such a famous song but that section where he just sings “I know I know I know” over and over gets me every time. He is my favourite songwriter, so effortless but passionate at the same time.
When I was writing ‘Understand’ I had that section in the back of my mind.
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Frank Ocean – ‘Solo‘
Specifically it’s the chorus of this song I am talking about.
I remember blasting this on a long drive for a solo writing trip, I had it on repeat and obviously skipping to the chorus so I could sing along. I wasn’t in a good place at the time and it was on that trip I wrote ‘Lifesaver’.
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Phoebe Bridgers – ‘I Know The End‘
I got sucked into the creative direction on the Phoebe Bridgers album because I was working with Dilly Gent. It was my first time creating a visual world for an album and this was the perfect example for me to dive into.
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‘Matter Of Time’ is out now.
