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MEG LUI
Instant Validation (Asthmatic Kitty Records)
Add date: 9.29.2026
Release date: 9.25.2026
Lui set to work on the album in fall 2024, embracing a deliberately playful approach and carving out time for the album while holding down three jobs. After connecting with Stevens through mutual friends in the Catskills—a tight-knit community of singer/songwriters that also includes her longtime partner Keenan O’Meara, the two musicians began expanding on demos Lui had gathered over the past ten years, deliberately creating without any boundaries. They recorded at Stevens’ home studio with musicians like Liam Kazar (a guitarist who’s toured with Jeff Tweedy, Kevin Morby, and Steve Gunn), bass player David Lizmi, long time friend Chris Holdridge on drums, O’Meara both on production, guitar, and vocals, Hannah Cohen on backing vocals, Olivier Manchon on violin and viola, and alto sax from Sam Evian; with Stevens playing nearly all the other instruments on Instant Validation. The resulting body of work centers on a sonic aesthetic suited to the immense depth of her imagination. “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,” says Lui, who attended Berklee College of Music and later launched her music career in Brooklyn. “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.”
Born from her diary-like yet poetic approach to lyrical storytelling, Instant Validation often examines the endless whirlwind of navigating life in your mid-30s: the infinite complexities of love and familial bonds, the suffocating grip of our collective addiction to technology, the prolonged state of arrested development endemic to so many millennials. In an unexpected twist, the album’s theme of pushing past inertia took on a new significance when Lui became pregnant in the final stages of the LP’s production. “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,” she says. “A lot of these songs came from feeling like I’m perpetually stuck and wasn’t growing as a person, and when I listened back I realized so many of the lyrics are about finding the courage to go ahead and live my life and not wait for this industry, which has been hard to find a footing in. To not wait on permission to make art - or try to make it fit into a perfect package and let it live and breathe as it is.”
The album’s name reveals the rare balance of tender sincerity and quick-witted charm within Lui’s songwriting, and stems from the title track’s sunny yet incisive look at the insanity of living life through a screen (from its final verse: “You’re running out of anonymity / In your own online movie / Can’t stand living in obscurity / You trade it down for insecurity”). “I wrote ‘Instant Validation’ thinking about how we’re all so obsessed with checking our phones to make sure we’re getting enough likes— it’s feeding the worst part of ourselves, just to get that rush of dopamine and we know it’s fucked-up but it’s still so hard to stop,” says Lui. “It felt like the right title for an album that’s very much about trying to figure out how to be happy in this world and this moment in time that we’re all living in.”
Another song sparked by Lui’s nuanced observation of our digital dependence, “Gone Girl” kicks off Instant Validation with a gentle plea to reconnect with the physical world (“Look up, look out, you’re missing your own life, trapped behind the glass / Forgot how to use your hands to make something new, even if it’s / Only making shapes in the sand, or in the dirt, to watch things grow”). Co-produced by Stevens and O’Meara, and featuring a radiant chorus of background harmonies, the resplendent full-band track gained even greater resonance after Lui discovered she was pregnant. “That line ‘You’re missing your own life’ really jumped out when I listened back to the album,” she says. “As a freelance musician without all the resources that come with a more traditional job, the idea of having children always felt pretty daunting. It’s still daunting now, but it feels good to move forward full-steam ahead without being held back by those expectations of what your life is supposed to look like.”
“Elvis Queen,” one of the most rapturous moments on Instant Validation, unfolds with a sprawling grandeur as Lui reflects on the death of her beloved aunt who was a passionate Elvis fan. “My aunt passing away brought up a lot of questions about what happens after we die,” she 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 more like a party.” While the sublimely hazy “Andromeda” takes the form of a starry-eyed love song, “Roadkill” arrives as a lilting piece of country-rock capturing the more painful aspects of romance. “I wanted to convey that feeling of being hung out to dry in a relationship, but also keep it lighthearted by referring to myself as an animal that’s been run over,” Lui points out. And on the sea-shanty-inspired “Are You Out There (Crimson & Clover),” Instant Validation embodies a haunting intensity fueled by its stormy rhythms and gorgeously swirling strings. “I wrote that song after watching a documentary about a 13-year-old girl who’d sailed across the world,” says Lui. “It seemed like a perfect metaphor for the experience of coming of age and feeling like you’re floating through the world and exploring what’s out there, and essentially searching for yourself.”
In a loving nod to Lui’s musical upbringing, Instant Validation’s standout tracks also include her spellbinding rendition of The Cranberries’ alt-pop classic “Dreams,” reimagined as a slow-building reverie awash in otherworldly harmonies. Raised just outside of Folsom, the singer grew up on her older brother’s eclectic CD collection and began turning her journal entries into songs at age eight. “I remember hiding in my closet and singing into a little handheld tape recorder my dad got for me,” says Lui, who also cultivated her love of music as part of her education at Waldorf school. She spent her high-school years making music—including taking up guitar, playing cello in the school orchestra, and singing in an all-girl rock band that mainly covered classic ‘70s rock songs—before heading to Berklee with the intention of honing her craft as a songwriter. “I ended up leaving with a little less than a year left, mostly because I couldn’t keep going into debt,” she says. “But even though I didn’t graduate, it really didn't matter, I met so many amazing people, including some musicians I still work with today.”
A decidedly community-minded artist, Lui built a close circle of likeminded musicians during her time in Brooklyn, frequently singing on friends’ projects and taking part in high-concept collaborations like co-writing/starring in the rock opera Smile Swamp Princess with composer Justin Johnson. Since moving to the Hudson Valley in 2015, she’s served as a background vocalist on a number of critically lauded albums (including Denison Witmer’s Anything At All, Keenan O’Meara’s Bathe ln the Everlasting Light and Sam Evian’s Plunge) while teaching music to young children. “Working with kids was a big part of what brought me back to making my own music,” she says. “There’s so much joy and spontaneity to the way they approach everything, and it inspired me to not get so caught up in my own head or worried about the outcome.” To that end, Stevens proved to be an ideal collaborator for Instant Validation. “Before we worked together, I hadn’t realized how much I needed someone to help me let go and let the songs become what they wanted to be,” says Lui. “The way his mind works is unstoppable in a beautiful way, and I felt so comfortable with him to just let the ideas flow.”
As she begins an unprecedented new chapter in her life and career, Lui carries forward a quiet confidence undeniably shaped by the making of Instant Validation. “One of the biggest takeaways from creating this record was that ‘Making things feels good, so go ahead and make what you want and don’t take yourself too seriously,’” she says. “It’s so easy these days to get stuck on our phones and get distracted from what really matters, partly because of feeling overwhelmed by all the desperation and anger and fear that's out there in the world. But I hope this album might inspire people to get unstuck, and bring them back to the things that make them feel the most human and most connected to the people and life happening around them.”
Photo Credit: Josh Goleman