May-A Don't Kiss Ur Friends

“She's the fire, I'm the trees, she’s so far out of my league,” MAY-A—Maya Cumming—sings on “Time I Love to Waste”. “She’s a hurricane, I’m just a breeze.” It’s an unapologetically doting, head-over-heels love song about the first girl Cumming ever fell for—and the subsequent realisation of her queerness. The Sydney artist's debut EP is a coming-of-age story of questioning her identity, discovering her sexuality, and not only understanding, but fully embracing it. Each track is bright and catchy, with warm pop melodies, nostalgic indie guitars and big drums, à la early Lorde, laying the musical groundwork for a remarkably personal, uplifting EP.
It begins with “Amiinmyhead?”, a pop song which sees Cumming questioning her relationship with her boyfriend. “His arms around me, I can only think how they're not yours/Surely he's thinking the same thing, that it all feels wrong,” she sings, coming to terms with the realisation that her real feelings lie elsewhere. On “Central Station” (which begins with a sample of the central Sydney station’s train announcement), she finds herself fantasising over a girl sitting opposite her in the carriage. It’s a familiar daydream—imagining an encounter with a total stranger on the train, laying out an entire life and relationship in just a few fleeting moments between stops. “Apricots”, which concludes the EP (excluding a second version of “Swing of Things”, featuring Powfu) was written on the same day as “Time I Love to Waste”. It’s a thoughtful self-reflection from Cumming to a younger version of herself—one who had not yet realised her sexuality, but felt like something wasn’t quite right about her hetero relationship. “You're not looking for a girl when that's something you don't know you want,” she sings, acknowledging that the younger Maya couldn’t have known who or what she wanted—she hadn’t even realised she was searching for anything else.