By Abby Webster
With her new single “Time I Love To Waste,” MAY-A has written the next chapter in a journey of ebullient self-discovery. On the track, the nineteen-year-old Australian expands upon the narrative from her breakout single, “Apricots,” which was released during the fall of last year. Both songs tell the story of a blossoming relationship, as MAY-A develops feelings for and pines after another girl.
Though the two were released separately, they came about concurrently. “I wrote them both on the same day,” MAY-A tells the Nuance team. “‘Apricots’ was the backing track, but I started trying to write the concept of “Time I Love to Waste,” which is just a straight-up love song for this girl. And I couldn’t do it. I was thinking about it and I was like, ‘Why is this so hard?’ And then I realized, ‘Oh, I’ve just never written a song for a girl before.’”
Drifting through the streets with her friends in the video for “Time I Love To Waste,” the indie-pop artist explores sexuality and selfhood, with nuance and without limitation. “She’s a hurricane / I’m just a breeze,” she sings, her voice electric over reverb guitar and punchy drum beats. It’s a suburban coming of age tale, as effortless as it is infectious.
MAY-A started writing songs about her experiences when she was 12 and, as a newcomer, she believes her current platform mirrors the intimacy of her music. “I’m still in the little place where it feels like I’m writing for myself because I don’t have too much music out. I still feel like I can be very real and very honest without worrying about what people are going to think of it,” she says.
For MAY-A, the pandemic has presented an opportunity to return to her writing: “[Quaratine] forced me to sit down, get back to my roots, and just play the guitar.” Yet it has also made working collaboratively more difficult. “I fucking hate Zoom sessions! Like more than anything on the goddamn planet, I hate Zoom sessions, because you can’t get someone’s emotions over the phone. So it has just been me and my guitar.”
A web-native with her beginnings on YouTube, MAY-A is definitely of the internet age, savvy at self-directing music videos starring a few close friends. The young artist credits years of vlogging for the clarity she brings to her artistic direction. “If we’re doing a video to explain how we wrote the song, or if we want to film me getting ready for a music video, I know what content needs to be involved. I know what the behind-the-scenes video needs to look like because I know how to edit it. And I know all the other assets that come with it.”
This creative insight has afforded MAY-A freedom that few artists her age enjoy—and she hasn’t taken it for granted. “[Filming is] the one thing that I have a lot of confidence in and don’t need to second guess myself [while doing]. I’m really, really happy that I had that knowledge to not worry about it.”
From the music to the videos, MAY-A’s work is her own: it documents her life, from her own perspective, as she figures things out for herself. “Time I Love To Waste” rockets her forward in this evolution, reveling in its own fresh feel while also presenting an artist on the cusp of maturity.
“I know what I’m doing,” MAY-A says, definitive in her vision. “I know what my standard is, and I know what I want it to look like.”