Last year The Murlocs and Fraser A. Gorman reunited on the line-up of Bambra based music festival, By The Meadow. For 2020 the festival is back with a slight name shorten and an even juicer list of acts. Taking place from Friday 27 – Sunday 29 March 2020, Meadow will play host to Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Frankie Cosmos (US), Sheer Mag (US), Dyson Stringer Cloher, Elizabeth, Surprise Chef and the ‘forever young’, Youth Group. And that’s just an appetiser of what is on offer. The main dish will be pasta served with a sprinkle of salt in the form of incomparable indie song chef, Angie McMahon.
“My life is food puns,” McMahon laughs. But in all seriousness, Angie McMahon is excited to be beginning her 2020 Victorian shows in a regional space, given the devastation overcoming the Australian rural spaces over the last couple of months, alongside other incredible talents.
“I’m pumped to be out in a rural setting and be able to be in the land. With everything that is going on [Australian bush fires], you just want to be in the natural world and out of the city and I want to be on festival campsite where people are helping the local community and people are supporting each other and looking after nature and I feel that that is what this festival is going to be, just a real community spirit. I think it’s going to be great and I’m really excited. I want to do more regional shows,” she says.
Currently, McMahon is on a well-deserved break following an exhausting touring schedule for 2019’s debut album, ‘Salt’, feeling a bit restless at home given the hectic nature that is the music industry that she was thrust into. However, McMahon has found solace in the opportunity that awaits her creatively.
“This is the first stretch of time where I don’t have any tours booked in so what I’m going to try to do is write a whole bunch of songs but at the same time, I don’t want them to turn out shit because I’m pressuring myself. It’s going to be writing and recording time but I’ll be figuring out how to navigate that as I go,” McMahon explains.
“I’m trying to think about it like I’m making a bunch of albums in my life and this is just going to be the second one. Not THIS is going to be the second one. Hopefully, it will slot into a whole narrative of developing what kind of artist I want to be and whatever comes out is meant to come out. I want it to be rewarding for my own mind and I want it to be what I’m going through and thinking about and what’s happening around me.”
The kind of artist that McMahon aspires to be is quite simple; an artist who sees value in, and strives for, development and extension as a musician, as an artist, and as a person to have a long and fruitful career. Make no mistake, she is already well on her way.
“I feel like it’s such a privilege to make records because for me it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and so ultimately that’s what I want to do. I want to make one after the other and keep on creating and some of my favourite artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, I look at their catalogue and they’ve made so many albums and that helps me take the pressure off because even though they may have had the same sophomore album pressure they’ve had ten or twenty albums after that and people love different records for different reasons. Ideally, I don’t know if I’ll ever make 20 records but it’s that kind of long term career plan where I just get to keep writing about the world around me and what that looks like to me is developing into a better writer as I go.”
“One of the things I’m trying to think about in this time off is practicing my music skills more and becoming a slightly better guitarist and writer as time goes on. I want it to be slightly more interesting than the last record and less interesting than the next one I will make and grow with it as I’m growing as an adult and have a narrative to refer to. All of my growth over the last couple of years as a young adult has been around Salt and how that has shaped my career as a musician. It feels like a really big piece of me. We made something that we are proud of and we put it out into the world and feels like a strong brick in terms of building a strong foundation of work.”
While McMahon mansion is under construction, site inspections at Meadow are on offer. The festival goes down March 27-29, 2020 – Bambra, Victoria. Tickets at www.meadowmf.com with 20% of profits from 2020 ticket sales going to the CFA in Victoria.
Meadow have also once again opened up a slot for an emerging artist from the Geelong/Surf Coast/Otways to score themselves a spot on the line up alongside the newly announced veritable feast. Applications are open now until midnight Friday 14 February via www.meadowmf.com.
Meadow 7 Lineup
Angie Mcmahon
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
Frankie Cosmos (US)
Sheer Mag (US)
Dyson Stringer Cloher
Close Counters
Youth Group
Loure
Elizabeth
Emily Wurramara
Cool Sounds
3k
Darcy Justice
Sweet Whirl
First Beige
Elle Shimada Collective
Colette
Egoism
Surprise Chef
100
Swazi Gold
+ More To Come
Written by Tammy Walters
Photo by Paige Clarke