Meg Lui Enlists Sufjan Stevens For Debut LP

After years spent lending her voice to other artists’ records, Meg Lui is stepping into the spotlight with her debut album. The Northern California-born singer/songwriter will release Instant Validation on Sept. 25 via Asthmatic Kitty Records, with longtime collaborator Sufjan Stevens producing, engineering and playing nearly every instrument across the project.

Lui is previewing the album with the sweeping new single “Elvis Queen,” a tribute to her late aunt that transforms grief into something unexpectedly celebratory. Originally conceived as a slow ballad, the song evolved into a brighter, more expansive arrangement. “This song is about my aunt who was a huge Elvis fan,” Lui says. “At first it was a very slow, sentimental song, but we sped it up for the final version. She was a very joyful person, so it made sense for it to feel a little bit like a party.”

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Stevens and Liam Kazar contribute backing vocals to “Elvis Queen,” which arrives with a video directed by Joe Raffanti. The song follows earlier singles “Gone Girl” and a cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams,” both of which also appear on the album.

Instant Validation was pieced together from demos Lui had written over the past decade after she connected with Stevens through mutual friends in the Catskills music community. Recorded at Stevens’ studio, the album also features contributions from Hannah Cohen, Sam Evian, David Lizmi, Chris Holdridge, Olivier Manchon and Lui’s longtime partner, Keenan O’Meara.

Rather than chasing a traditional indie-folk sound, Lui says Stevens encouraged her to embrace a more adventurous approach. “In the past I’ve tried to fit into some sort of Americana or indie mold, and it always felt a little flat to me,” she says. “With Sufjan there was so much more out-of-the-box thinking, and we ended up adding layers upon layers that created an unrestrained soundscape for the record.”

Drawing from diary-like songwriting, Instant Validation explores love, family, technology and the uncertainties of life in one’s 30s through a cast of surreal characters that includes anthropomorphic flowers, sea monsters and figures from Greek mythology. During the album’s final stages, Lui also discovered she was pregnant, a life change that reframed many of the record’s themes about moving beyond creative and personal inertia.

“I think my songs tend to sound like I’m giving advice, but most of the time I’m actually talking to myself and trying to work through my problems,” Lui says. “A lot of these songs came from feeling like I’m perpetually stuck.” The lesson? “Making things feels good, so go ahead and make what you want and don’t take yourself too seriously.”

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