Angie McMahon and her music (are) unwound

MUSIC has the power to help us understand periods of transformation, as does Angie McMahon’s latest album Light, Dark, Light Again, which she will perform on tour this year.

The Australian leg of the international tour includes a stop Bendigo in June.

Over recent years McMahon said her music has taken on a distinctly gentler, freer and more positive bent.

“I have always used songwriting to process things that I find hard or overwhelming, but I think I entered a place of wanting to make sure I didn’t write anything mean or anything harmful and recognising the power of positive language,” she said.

“I think in some ways, I’ve started allowing myself to make things that feel a bit more scary or might be a bit harder to achieve on stage.

“I started entering some more musical challenges because in the moment that I was writing the song that’s what it needed, and so trying not to be limited by my fear of what might happen down the line when I had to play live.”

When playing live, McMahon said her band doesn’t use a metronome to stay in time.

“It’s been fun just trying to experiment with what we can do as a band,” she said.

The first song of the album, Saturn Returning, references the astrological late-20s coming-of-age process called the Saturn Return.

“I love the astrology element, and it being related to the big universe and the movement of Saturn and everything because that is so far out of our control,” said McMahon.

“When I was writing the song, I was in a mindset of discovering how important it was to be kind to myself and how that was a really big part of going into big changes and shedding all these layers.

“And so, the song kind of came as a series of affirmations and a lot of the songs on the record started appearing in that same sort of way, that encouragement to myself to walk through a portal or in through the next door.”

Angie McMahon will perform at Ulumbarra Theatre on Saturday 1 June and will be joined by Annie-Rose Maloney.

Tickets can be purchased through frontiertouring.com/angiemcmahon.