Perhaps it is my fear of drowning in a sea of ennui or perhaps, and more likely, a true reflection on the lack of originality that characterises so many of the new voices that reach my ears that I was drawn to question how someone with a mere nineteen years on the planet could sound like she had been there for decades. So it was with Glasgow’s own Maria McMillan.
Of course her EP “Vistas from a Bedroom Window” has a few rough spots but it is equally true that Maria McMillan appears to have no desire whatsoever to be a sheep. She is instead something of a wolf who, in “Who We Are”, prowls folk influences to find a lyrical cynicism that is most unexpected from a singer songwriter from the here and now. “The Night Bus” dirties things up, as any post midnight song should, with her voice seemingly drawn from a well filled with iPhone captured reality that has been there for much longer than the technology has. It’s the present and it’s the past in one three minute movie for the ears starring a white rabbit.
“National Treasure” is, by comparison, conventional but, that said, her voice still resonates with truth and, consequently, turns the song into something of an anthem that would be more than acceptable to the mainstream.
You want a summary? Here we go. Possessed of a distinctive voice that belies her tender years, Maria McMillan makes Glasgow sound like the kind of place where music lives. Not exists but lives. I hear and believe.