“And I was like, ‘Oooh, I didn’t know you could do that.’ That was a big moment. “It was the first time I heard someone sing but it wasn’t pretty or perfect,” she reflects. That same teacher introduced Mac to the 2005 album Le Fil by French chanteuse Camille. And she said she wants people to cry even when they don’t understand what she’s saying. “I got obsessed with Edith Piaf, and how she would just wear a black dress. Her colour palette owes a small debt of gratitude to one of her inspirations, Edith Piaf, to whom the 27-year-old was exposed through her French teacher in high school. “But when I started writing songs it became my life.”Ī day after her show at Leadbelly, Mac is sitting at a table in the upstairs area of trendy Newtown eatery Queen Chow, dressed head to toe in black, her pale complexion interrupted only by a shade of deep red lipstick. “Mum said I always wanted to be a singer,” recalls Mac.

Clearly things have gotten a little bigger than her lounge room. Since then, Mac’s songs have been streamed more than 23 million times on Spotify alone. And I was imagining 17 people in my lounge room.” Seventeen people had listened to the song, and I was like, oh my god. “And then it would tell you how many people had listened to it, and I remember the number 17. “A Triple J presenter and I was like, ‘Oh my God, they’ve listened to the song!’” she chuckles. The buzz began in late 2012, when she uploaded the first song she’d ever recorded professionally, “Known Better”, to the Unearthed website. It was a nerve-racking affair, on account of the fact that the audience was populated by representatives from various record labels, each keen to snare Mac’s signature. Striding onstage at inner-Sydney venue Leadbelly for an industry showcase/launch party for Low Blows, it was in this very room four years ago (then called the Vanguard) that Mac played her first headlining show in Sydney. Fast forward to a Monday evening in mid-May, and Mac is once again in the presence of ghosts, this time from her past.

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