If you check out Meg Lui’s debut album “Instant Validation” and struggle to assign it a genre, you’re in good company: the artist herself has also given up trying to pull of that feat.
“I think something I’ve always struggled with is like, where do I fit?” says the Hudson Valley-based singer-songwriter and guitarist, who worked with fellow Catskills transplant Sufjan Stevens to make the album, who has released it on his label, Asthmatic Kitty.
“It’s kind of been a long time coming to get a full-length record together, and to be working with Asthmatic Kitty and to have had Sufjan produce the record is just kind of a dream come true, to be honest,” Lui says. “So I feel really good about it. And I feel like I’m in a different place than I have been in the past when I’ve released music. I mean, I hope people like it, of course, but, it’s sort of like, here’s this thing that I made that I’m proud of and I hope you get something from it.”
Listeners who have been enjoying the music coming out of the Hudson Valley from artists such as Hannah Cohen and Sam Evian, who are friends of Lui’s, or those who are fond of Stevens’ lush, intimate approach, should find a lot to like on “Instant Validation.” But there’s more to it than that: The title track might remind some folks of Japanese Breakfast, while there’s some resemblance to Fleetwood Mac on “Elvis Queen.”
An arresting take on The Cranberries’ hit “Dreams” is another standout.
“I’ve been a Cranberries fan for a really long time and so was Sufjan,” says Lui. “That’s a cover I’ve done for a while and I always love it. That song kind of hits me at different times in my life, the words and the lyrics. Ten years ago it kind of felt like it meant something else to me than it does now, and I just love a song like that that can last for so long and still mean something to you and kind of change and recolor with your life, and you kind of change around it.”
When Lui and Stevens considered recording “Dreams,” Stevens told her they should deviate from the original. “That second half of the song is really him putting his take on it. He really worked on the reharmonization of the second half of the song.”
The album features a host of collaborators, including her longtime partner Keenan O’Meara, who also did some production work on it, as well as Liam Kazar (who’s toured with Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby and Steve Gunn), bassist David Lizmi, Chris Holdridge on drums, Cohen on backing vocals, Evian on sax, OIivier Manchon on violin and viola and Stevens playing nearly all of the other instruments.
Lui performed at Tempo in Kingston on Sept 25 and will play at The Sultan Room in Brooklyn on Sept. 29. On Oct. 10 she’ll play at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston as part of the O+ Festival.
Lui often performs with O’Meara and Cohen, as well as in the country cover band Critter Bonus, and in just the past few years has sung on albums by everyone from Stevens to John Legend.
Originally from Northern California, Lui said she started singing backups out of necessity as an artist who wanted to keep performing.
“I love singing, I love singing with other people. I love harmonizing and singing with Keenan, and singing with Hannah has always been so fun,” she says. “I actually have always done session work, whether I’ve done weird commercial jobs and vocal jobs, and I kind of love it. It’s like a fun little challenge for me. Like we need this track in 30 minutes or an hour, and I’m like, yeah, let’s do it.”
When working in other people’s bands, sometimes she sticks to guitar and other times she’ll just sing. While helping people with their albums and live performances, Lui says, it was like she was “working on my record for 10 years, basically.”
“I kept being like, I’m working on a record, I’m working on a record. And I was, conceptually in my brain.”
In the past two years, she committed to the idea, yielding “Instant Validation.”
Moving with O’Meara from Brooklyn to the Hudson Valley has led to bonds with fellow musicians in the community, which is beneficial when they’re looking for collaborators or people to socialize with.
“There’s like a Friday night baseball game that our friend does, and it’s a bunch of musicians who live in Kingston.”
While the couple live “about 25 minutes from anything” in a more rural part of the Kingston area, “it’s beautiful,” she says.
“There’s a lot of people who in the past 10 or 15 years who have moved here, and with COVID there was obviously another boom I the area, and that’s really brough a lot of people up. People are naturally finding each other just by playing music.”
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