McCarthy ready to drop new single

FOUR years on from her debut EP, Mariah McCarthy is gearing up to launch her new album in September.

Ahead of the new record, this Saturday McCarthy will play a free event at Handle Bar from 6pm, where she’ll perform the first single off the album, Black and White.

“Black and White is my attempt at writing almost a pop song,” the folk singer songwriter said.

“It’s about how wrong action or decision can shape your entire life and the regret that may cause and how not every situation is one way or another way, there’s grey areas.”

McCarthy said the album is a compilation of songs written since her first release Counting Sheep, which came out in 2018.

“While some of the songs feel quite new, I’ve had them for a long time,” she said. “I was planning, I started looking at recording in 2019 and as I got a bit more organised, COVID hit and I wasn’t able to record.

“It’s been a bit of a process, I’ve been in and out of the studio when we’ve had openings from lockdowns, it’s exciting to have it finished and ready to go.

“I didn’t write the songs as an album, but three’s certainly themes of loss and most of them are personal things that have happened to me, or me putting myself in someone else’s situation.”

McCarty grew up in Heathcote and after a stint in Melbourne, settled in Bendigo in 2018 where she teaches music at six schools across the region.

She said while she is still a solo artist, she plays more as a trio with close friends Ben Langdon and Cassie Ward and Langdon will open the launch, playing his own songs as Grand Baxter.

After Saturday, McCarty will perform at the Bendigo Blues and Roots Music Festival winter fundraiser on 24 July, and at the Golden Vine Hotel on 20 August.