Leonie Mac – Too Far Away” & “Take Me With You”
Leonie Mac is an Australian singer-songwriter. She draws musical influences from pop, rock, darkwave, electronic, and the Bristol sound. In the 1990s she was signed to Australia’s oldest and most successful independent recording company, Albert Productions (Alberts), best known for AC/DC. She has also been a recipient of funding from The Australia Council for the Arts to develop original material and she won recognition for her lyric writing in the National Song Writers Competition. Leonie has also appeared on several of Australia’s favorite TV variety shows. She released her debut album in 2015, and has followed that up with the album entitled “M”, produced by Audiothrillseeker.
In this album there is always more going on than you perceive at first, and Leonie Mac is able to utilize the musical arrangements and instruments to get her ideas across. She has the knack for writing incredibly alluring melodies, while the music arrangements and layers of instrumentation is perfection on “M”, and hits the listener like an emotional ton of bricks. The music, lyrics and vocals forge ahead with such creative force that one is almost left breathless. It is pure genius.
From the opening track, “Crazy Sexy Cool (Night Walker)” the album is engaging, beautiful, dark and moving. It begins with weighty, somber tones, and segues into a more propulsive soundscape. Sonically speaking, “Denimondaine” evinces a more airy and ethereal adventure with Leonie Mac adding nuanced colors to her musical palette.
Like all great things, it probably took the artist a lot of work and introspection to craft this project. “M” is the result of her personal and artistic endeavors and evolution. Overall, it is a stirring work, a testament to Leonie Mac’s neo-femme-fatale journey. Through the intense lyrics, and glistening, futuristic tunes, Leonie soars into a galaxy of electrifying compositions, which provide her with the space, time, and breadth to go three dimensions deep.
This is evident on the eclectic “Big Sleep (Funeral Song)”, and the string dominated “Too Far Away”. The imagery Leonie Mac and her spirits conjure on this latter track, is both stirring and haunting. The level of sophistication Leonie brings to the music scene is highlighted on “Casanova”, which is full of lyrics that effortlessly travel to the deepest parts of the heart. Leonie’s songs are most powerful when they place hard-fought storytelling wisdom at their core, the lyrics so meaningful and profound they almost hurt. This occurs effortlessly on “The Cat and the Canary”.
Overall, there’s an earthiness to this album’s sound that makes sense, given Leonie Mac’s musical and lyrical explorations, but it makes these songs feel rooted in something powerful — something visceral. In that way, the production on “Take Me With You” offers yet another layer to the album’s story. Simply writing a pleasing song isn’t enough for Leonie Mac, who fashions herself as a storyteller, while she also gets to flex her impressively nuanced vocal range.
Leonie Mac’s somewhat forward-thinking approach to traditional songwriting has both an attitude and spirit of its own. Often you get a sense that Leonie could easily be writing her songs for the musical theatre stage, as her clear creative vision cuts through the obvious conventions. There is something about Leonie Mac that is inherently captivating. Her voice is soothing and welcoming, while the lyrics in this recording often contain underlying hints of darkness, and the marriage of the two results in a mesmerizing listening experience.
