Meg Lui
Instant Validation
ASTHMATIC KITTY
Northern California–born songwriter Meg Lui has lived in the rural Catskills for over a decade, but her classic-rock and freewheeling folk-pop songs are pure West Coast sunshine. Her debut album Instant Validation finds Lui partnering with Asthmatic Kitty Records head Sufjan Stevens beyond the record’s production and instrumental work: Over the course of a full year, Lui and Stevens—who also moved Upstate a few years ago—worked on the perky LP whenever they had stretches of time together. The song suite has a dreamy ’60s and ’70s breeziness to it, largely due to Lui’s voice, which may be familiar to listeners from her backing vocal work on Stevens’ Javelin, John Legend’s My Favorite Dream, and labelmate Denison Witmer’s Anything at All.
The dreamy vocals heard across Instant Validation suit the campy pop of “Elvis Queen” and “Miss Queen Know It All,” the mythological love song “Andromeda,” and Lui’s starry-eyed cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams.” She wrote the record’s title track as a winking ode to everyone’s unhealthy relationship with their cell phones, with the final verse speaking to the feeling head-on: “You’re running out of anonymity / In your own online movie / Can’t stand living in obscurity / You trade it down for insecurity.” Lui recorded many of these songs at Stevens’ home studio in the Catskills where the duo was joined by a ragtag group of musicians, including guitarist Liam Kazar, bassist David Lizmi, drummer Chris Holdridge, and producer Keenan O’Meara, with Olivier Manchon on violin and viola, Sam Evian on alto sax, and Hannah Cohen providing backing vocals.
Instant Validation flits between genres with ease, with Lui’s voice serving as the common thread that keeps even the most threadbare songs afloat amid Stevens’ experimental production. “Gone Girl” opens the record with an earnest plea before erupting into a full-band chorus; “Roadkill” is a dejected country-rocker, while “Are You Out There (Crimson and Clover)” surprises listeners with a sea shanty anchored by a wild backbeat and churning strings. The back half of the record does falter a few steps as the energy sags, but Lui’s band has enough heat to keep things from falling apart. Together with Stevens, she maintains a steady hand through it all and manages to avoid genre or lyrical cutesiness. Her songs possess a real warmth and hopefulness as she keeps the energy of her mountain ensemble humming over 12 songs.
