Introducing: Megan Lara Mae

Today I’m introducing a Brighton based artist who is playing this year’s Glastonbury festival and also has a song on Spotify that is approaching 60,000 streams; yet the chances are most readers won’t have heard of her, such is the sheer volume of new music out there.

So, here’s my first tiny attempt to get the name Megan Lara Mae embedded with you. 

The second will come on October 5th when Megan plays alongside The Blinders, Another Sky, Talk Show and fellow Brighton residents Johanna Bramli and Arxx at Dials festival in Portsmouth (many more still to be announced). Dials is a multi-venue new music discovery event I help curate and book. It's the world's easiest festival as all the venues are on 1 street - you can walk between them all in about 5 minutes. You’ll see Megan’s name amongst the next wave of artists that are being announced for the festival in the not too distant future - but consider this a sneak preview. If you fancy grabbing yourself a ticket for Dials they’re £20 and available by clicking through to the website here.

On her Soundcloud Megan lists some of her inspirations as Rae Morris, Sigrid, Lorde, BANKS and Aurora so it was perhaps inevitable that she would get the Breaking More Waves seal of approval – all of those artists being ones I have featured here in their early stages of their careers on the blog. However, liking a certain style or genre is easy. Liking good songs, whatever the genre is even more my cup of tea. If Megan’s brand of creative electronic pop didn’t have the tunes, I wouldn’t be writing about her here. But she does. 

Take her song of strength Caribou for example, with its thundering slabs of synth, its percussive shouts of ‘Hey’ and its positive lyrics: ‘Standing tall, getting drenched in the rain, but I’m not giving up on what I’ve gained from this pain.’ It’s a spot-on pop tune. If a marketing person heard Caribou they’d probably wet their pants and start shouting from the rooftops that it was ‘empowering’ but as that’s currently the most over used word in pop this year, we’re not going there Ok? 

Another example of her contribution to being a good thing for pop music comes in the form of the curious From The Ashes. Its an idiosyncratic piece that combines Vince Clarke Erasure / Yazoo electronics with something far more swirling and cinematic. Megan’s vocal delivery is impressive as well – strong but never overstated even when the track aims for the heavens.

There’s some clear talent in Megan Lara Mae. That’s why I’ve booked her for Dials Festival. Oh and that Glastonbury slot? No, it’s not the Pyramid stage (obviously), but you’ll find her playing a slot on a bandstand near the Croissant Neuf tent (the tent where Ed Sheeran made his Glastonbury debut in 2011) before the bigger stages open, so if you’re going this year try and get along to see her and support some new music as well as the bigger stars.

Glastonbury likes her. Dials likes her. Now it’s your turn.

Megan Lara Mae - Caribou