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mxmtoon
releases
rising (the deluxe)

+ drops new single
plastic pony

+ touring Australia
this October

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Photo – Lissyelle Laricchia

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“mxmtoon has become one of the indie world’s major breakthroughs.” – VARIETY

“It sounds like the perfect coming-of-age film theme, though songs of soundtracks past have never cut quite so deep.” – MTV

“..a dance-filled, groovy disco-pop track that is filled to the brim with melancholy messaging. The glittering production juxtaposed with the doleful lyricism perfectly shows Mxmtoon’s multitudes in a single song” – BILLBOARD

“..the more she endeavors, the more she continues to level up, so to speak.” – AMERICAN SONGWRITER

“‘sad disco finds mxmtoon mixing glitter with teardrops…vocals are slick, shimmering..” – FLOOD

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Set to perform in Australia for the first time this October, today mxmtoon releases rising (the deluxe) via AWAL.  rising, released in May this year, is a collection of songs that argue growth is always evolving.  Released to critical acclaim, the album has amassed over 20 million streams and saw the singer, songwriter, producer, podcaster and social activist reach new heights creatively.

rising (the deluxe) includes new single plastic pony and recent single kaleidoscope. On the deluxe release Maia tells us, “rising is everything i love packaged into a project, and what better way to expand and build upon that than by releasing deluxe tracks to go with the original twelve. i know that my sense of who i am is ever evolving, and i hope to get that idea across to the people that listen to my music as often as i can. both tracks being added serve the function of building on more to the story of me. kaleidoscope being about the wildly vast facets of self that we as people can inhabit, and “plastic pony” covering the realization that life can sometimes slip through our fingers. both lend themselves to the narrative rising tells, while leaving the next chapter of mxmtoon open for exploration! enjoy xo.”

mxmtoon is also teaming up with The Sims™ 4’s for their latest brand campaign which is inspired by nighttime ads and infomercials of the ’90s that aired during the wee hours, players will meet the many versions of mxmtoon that can be seen after the sun goes down. You can read more about it here.

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More on rising….

Though wrought as always from personal experience, mxmtoon extends these glittering and moody tunes — the impatiently waiting jangle of “mona lisa,” the frustrated but persevering electrofunk of “scales,” the incandescent and unforgettable bounce of “dance (end of the world)” — as acts of communal solidarity. Maia knows this has all been hard, so she wants to sing it out, together.

In late 2019, Maia had just finished her first full tour as mxmtoon, and she felt inspired by the prospects of her career and life to come — two new EPs in the making, more shows, a planned move to join her brother in New York. But as the pandemic took hold, she returned to her parents’ home, working to return to her old writing habits in that guest bedroom-turned-makeshift studio. She felt stuck, however, so suspended in time and place she barely wrote anything at all during 2020. What’s more, she lost a cherished grandfather to leukemia, rushing to see him one last time in Florida, and then a beloved grandmother. That’s to say nothing of elections and protests, nationalist revanchism and bigoted violence, enough to beleaguer or age anyone.

Much of rising unfurls from that same premise — mxmtoon’s hallmarked vulnerability buttressed by a newfound musical effervescence and might. These are the songs, as Maia puts it, that she wished existed when she struggled as a teen. They are instruction manuals for surviving, written for young people looking for themselves, but coded as magnetic pop. “growing pains” asks thorny questions about whether we actually improve as we age (or if that’s just what we tell ourselves to feel better) above guitars that shimmer like a sunrise and drums that lift off like rockets. “dance (end of the world)” acknowledges the apocalyptic tenor of our times but finds at least 150 seconds of Gloria Gaynor-style salvation in holding someone (yourself included) close and just moving. “learning to love you” reckons with the exhausting demands of our breathless interconnectedness and funnels the dizziness into a pop sunshower, its namesake chorus rendered as a gleeful collective credo. “frown” gets absolutely funky with absolute existential despair, a pressure-relief valve for the beset mind.

Everything here doesn’t revel in musical refulgence, though. As Maia relates the story of visiting her dying grandfather during “florida,” she remains under cover of chiming acoustic guitars and cascading cymbal washes, a choice that highlights the writing’s poignant intimacy. Laced with arcing strings and textural harmonies, the exquisite “dizzy” captures the vertigo of someone who has spent four years in the public eye but, more broadly, anyone who thinks too much about the perception of online strangers. These more mellow moments betray the depth of their peppy counterparts and the breadth of experience that Maia, now 21, frontloads into mxmtoon.

For Maia, rising represents the culmination of an unintended trilogy that also includes dawn and dusk, the dual EPs she released in 2020. It’s true that rising continues their era of rapid musical growth for mxmtoon. But these dozen songs are the definitive steps forward for mxmtoon, because they are just as ingenious and honest and unguarded musically as Maia has always been lyrically.

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new album – rising (the deluxe) out now
new single – plastic pony out now

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Tour Dates

Tuesday 4th October – Recital Centre, Melbourne – SOLD OUT
Thursday 6th October – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Sunday 9th October – Triffid, Brisbane
Tuesday 11th October – The Tuning Fork, Auckland

Tickets on sale now

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AMNPLIFY – DB