How Mia Wray’s awakening has carried out a new musical chapter

andIt was an early morning in September 2022 and Mia Wray He was swirling in the middle of an airport. She checked a flight to London for a writing trip, with sessions reserved with several composers and producers in the UK. However, this was not the reason for the growing adrenaline. Rather, while the Pop artist in Melbourne was making his way through check-in and security, she quickly realized that her life was about to change forever-because she was infatuated with a woman.

“I remember calling my friend at the airport,” says Wray says Nmestanding in her offices Australian Tag, mushroom music. “(Saying) I feel that I cannot explain it. I feel something has been lit or lit in me for the first time in a very long period of time. I feel naughty, I feel physically hot. I feel that my skin and face is always reddish and lit whenever I think about it and when I think, I think, what it represents.

“I was, well, fuck, what will I do? This is not just a little cute crush. This is a really great thing. And I’m with my seven -year -old partner. Fuck.”

Wray went on flight, and for the next few weeks she sat in studios and writing rooms trying to unravel the panicked strands in her brain. It was a “surrealist” experience, she says, sitting on the sofas with strangers and sketching something as vulnerable as she came to her sexuality. “The quantity of sofas for strangers in London that I cried …” Wray smiles, shaking his head.

This was the emotional crucible that falsified Wray’s debut album “Hi, it is nice to meet me”. It is a long awaited debut for the composer, who has launched three EPs since it was signed by Mushroom in 2012. With popular singles such as “Monster Brain” and “Stay Awake”, it has become clear over the years why Wray has been so embarrassed by the late Mushroom and the legend of the Austral music industry. Michael Gudinski: Writing her songs was sharp and full of heart, channeling likes Haim and Maggie Rogers.

Unexpectedly, one of these artistic touch stones would play a role in “Good, it is nice to meet me.” British singer Gabrielle Applin – a Hero of Wray’s for more than a decade – has joined one of his sessions of writing Bath at the last moment.

“It was a big moment for me,” says Wray. “I listened to Gabby’s music since I was 14, and her art was my best partner. Obviously, I didn’t know her personally, but from a time, I am on a couch with her writing a song and trust in her personally about my situation. This was a strange moment, a complete circle. “The song that fell from the session was the single” Tell Her “and one of the peaks of the album, the anger and nervous emotion of Wray powered by a leading bass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1lmv3i3ZZ4

Another key session on the trip was with Manchester Duo Soap, who helped make the song “What If”. “(I told them), that’s what happens,” says Wray. “” He will be shit. I’ll leave my partner. And then this girl I am obsessed with will just make my heart break and everything will be shit and I will be alone and more unusual. “And they were like this:” Sure, but let’s look at the other side: what happens if it is amazing and what happens if it is wonderful? “

The songs on “Good, it is nice to meet” are missive from this moment and contain an arrest clarity; The songs reveal the truth on the page in real time. As Wray notes, only a few pieces look back in reflection, including the emotional and happy “not as yesterday”. The production, managed by the producer Aussie, Rob Munos and the London Future Cut duo, is polished, Wray’s vowels were pushed in front of the mix. There are also a few curves balloons, such as the dance song “The Way She Moves”, which Wray recognizes has no “sense”.

“The more everyone knows you are strange … You can find people. And people who are not cool with that? Fuck -to -le “

“But that’s why it has to be on registration,” she laughs. “Because it didn’t make sense that I felt like a 13-year-old in the body of a 27-year-old and I had a second puberty and I want to go out and experience the night life. The emotion of being, “I can only connect with a girl if I want.” And this is allowed. It does not have to be hidden or ashamed, I am now in a city where this is a thing and is accepted, and if I want to start a hinge profile and set it only in women, I can do this only. “

When Wray returned from the UK, he broke up with her long -lasting partner, a difficult, but determined ending, chronicled in the future single “sad, but True”. “I was very honest with him,” she says. “And the thing is that I love him so much, but I was simply not happy … and at the end of the day, I don’t think he was happy.”

The final song written for the album was the opening song, Born from the moment Wray was removed from the house where her partner had lived, watching him in the rear -view mirror. Later, he was in a writing session with the Melburnian colleague G flip and producer Aidan Hogg and the whole story spilled out of it. Together, they conceived the song that introduced it to Mia Wray.

Although Wray is open and generous in our conversation, she recognizes that resuming these stories and presenting the registration in the world is slightly discouraging. “It was a delicate balance between being vulnerable to strangers and telling this story and also being vulnerable to me, my friends and family … and then I just try to be gentle with me,” she says. “But it was really wonderful how welcoming and hot they were what it was about and what we passed.”

The final song on the recording, The Lilting “Everybody knows”, is also the oldest, which dates back to 2018. Written well before the events of the rest of the album, he sees Wray to feel in step with those around her. It is not lost on Wray that the song has gained a new meaning after the past few years.

“It is funny how complete that circle came … (that’s why I put it at the end,” says Wray. “As everyone knows you are unusual, we can all go further and you can find your people. And people who are not cool with that? Fuck ‘. “

Mia Wray’s “Hi, it’s nice to know me” He went out on mushroom music on March 14th. Australian tournament data can be found here