Canadian now based in Los Angeles musician Maylee Todd dropped her Stones Throw debut album called Maloo.
Don’t judge the album artwork by its cover considering her 2010’s Choose Your Own Adventure was named one of the worst album cover that year.
Maloo is a blissful, spacious and sometimes a weirdly quirky electro-pop R&B album which is up in the alley for the label.
About the album:
Over 11 tracks of electronic pop songs, Maloo tells the story of a conscious AI observer summoned into being by the Children of Ew, creators of the metaverse.
In this Age of Energy, empathy, mental health, and creativity are the core elements for survival.
MALOO travels to the Infinite Program, a planet whose sustainability is dependent on the well-being of its inhabitants.
The songs on Maloo are inspired by the similarities between the human brain and a computer program, as well as social media’s impact on people’s self-worth and value systems.
Maylee Todd’s own experience with mental health informs her art: 2017’s Acts of Love explored the therapeutic uses of psilocybin, and her touring show Virtual Womb invited audiences to discuss their personal approaches to self-care.
Although Maloo was conceived in the virtual realm, the album’s subject matter is firmly drawn from Maylee’s experiences with mental health, with each track transporting us further into Maylee Todd’s imagination.
“Show Me” is about vulnerability, and the shame and stigma surrounding presenting your genuine self, “Dream With You” is a break-up song, as MALOO struggles with unhealthy thought patterns and needs to detach from their habitual suffering, and “No Classification” was inspired by Maylee’s questions around her multiracial and gender identity: “As an artist that runs the fluid line of both male and female constructs I always struggled with the ideas of what’s expected from me as a female and what I wanted to participate in as a human.”
Maloo was composed on a Japanese sequencer called the Tenori-on, and refined with album co-producer Kyvita. Maylee – who is originally from Canada and is now based in Los Angeles where she also runs a mentorship program teaching Ableton to BIPOC artists, hosting workshops across Canada, Los Angeles, and the Philippines.
“I want to reimagine a new way of sharing concepts, art, and how we choose to add value to our identities. This project symbolizes challenges with mental health, identity, how I cope, and the change I would like to see in society through this fictional story of Maloo.”
Maloo gets: 📷📷📷📷📷📷📷/10.
Maylee Todd – Maloo [Streaming]
