Taking inspiration from losing inspiration is almost its own songwriting genre. Angie McMahon can relate. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter first made headlines in 2013 after winning a Telstra competition to support Bon Jovi, but having done the shows, she halted the momentum to evaluate the quality of her material and start again from scratch.
Pressure. It’s the uneasy bedfellow of perfectionism. And McMahon finds herself thinking about pressure a lot – its effect on her, and its effect on others.
“In the paper the other day I was reading about growing rates of depression in children and how looking after mental health has to become part of the school curriculum. I was like, ‘Yes!’” she tells Guardian Australia. Sitting in a Melbourne bar, she cups her face and doesn’t so much lean on the table as slump cooperatively towards the recorder.
“Without getting too personal, I’ve heard of two men I knew, who were really successful, and who were loved, who died from their depression. You just can’t imagine how different it might have been if they had known a culture from birth where you get to talk about that. It makes me so sad there’s that attitude of having to be closed off. I feel like the only way to help cure that is for me to be the opposite.”
Six years since she took time out, McMahon has just been awarded the Grulke prize for developing non-US act at the SXSW music festival and conference (an award previously won by Courtney Barnett, Haim and Chvrches) and is releasing her debut album “Salt”, which almost feels like a greatest hits, compiled as it is of her contenders for Australia’s largest national music poll, the Triple J Hottest 100, and the single Slow Mover, which was certified gold on the Australian music charts.
And yet, the lyrics of one single, Pasta, reveal the paralysis that still blights her. “I just sit in my house making noise for fun / And I’m not moving much / Or proving much to anyone,” she sings, languishing on a couch in the video, kept company by a sympathetic dog.
“I found it really hard coming home from the last tour,” McMahon says. “All I could think of doing was sitting outside in the sun and staring at birds and smoking cigarettes. It’s interesting to write about because it kind of gets you through it. It’s a form of productivity in the feeling of lethargy.”
McMahon doesn’t shy away from discussing the conundrum of the sensitive artist, under pressure to promote themselves while remaining authentically troubled. She recounts a recent conversation between two of her friends. One had remarked on how well McMahon was doing, securing lots of tour dates and international showcases. The other friend was concerned. “Yeah, but Angie is meant to sit in her room in the dark and write songs. She’s not meant for touring,” the friend said.
McMahon had long experienced elements of depression and anxiety, but as long as she stayed in her comfort zone, they didn’t flare up too dramatically. Then came the success and the touring, include much-coveted support slots with the Pixies, Father John Misty, the Shins, Mumford & Sons and Alanis Morissette. “I’ve probably had more life experience in the last year or two than I had in my whole teens. I was super-reclusive then, and now I’m out in the world. Welcome to my anxiety,” she laughs.
While McMahon’s guitar playing is accomplished, it’s her richly reverberating voice that is the obvious drawcard, whether in the more intimate folk numbers or a soaring track such as Keeping Time. It sometimes draws comparisons to Florence and the Machine, though she was reared on kd lang.
“I don’t know if the way I sing is technically very good,” she says. “In fact, one time I was talking to my friend Ainslie Wills about it. She’s a wonderful singer and she watched me sing, saying, ‘You put your tongue really far back in your mouth.’ Apparently that’s not normal, but I think originally I was trying to emulate kd lang and Tom Waits, and even Missy Higgins – there’s a low register to her voice that made her stories connect with me.”
Growing up in Fairfield in inner Melbourne (the kind of place commonly described as “leafy”) with her three more rambunctious siblings, music became McMahon’s particular corner. These days, people are uploading their own covers of McMahon’s songs to Instagram and tagging her. She feels awkward enough trying to represent herself on Instagram as it is. “I don’t really know what to do,” she squirms. “I just ‘like’ them. I’m just like, ‘Good’.”
“Salt” by Angie McMahon
The Fat Angel Sings 