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True Blue’s Maya Laner has long been your favorite pop star’s favorite pop star, regularly in the orbit of a long list of collaborators and admirers that includes Caroline Polachek, Lorde, Avalon Lurks, Grimes, Alex G, Clairo, the list goes on. It’s immediately clear why Maya’s become such an inspiration and sounding board for so many when listening to Star Witness, her long awaited full-length debut that came out this October – Maya has an uncanny ability to spin disparate influences into pitch-perfect pop songs that are immediately catchy while revealing more and more to the listener with each play.
Across Star Witness, her writing and production is so intuitively fluid that it takes a while to notice how sophisticated and intricate each song is – the meter slips, the vocal melodies are precise yet completely unexpected, and her production decisions are subtly referential to some of the best past and present pop music while being firmly pointed towards the future. Mostly, the album is sweeping and radio-ready while maintaining the intimacy of feeling deeply precious to the person who made it. You can feel the love put into each song and it hugely paid off. I don’t believe in ranked best-of lists, but if I did Star Witness would be my #1.
Across Star Witness, her writing and production is so intuitively fluid that it takes a while to notice how sophisticated and intricate each song is – the meter slips, the vocal melodies are precise yet completely unexpected, and her production decisions are subtly referential to some of the best past and present pop music while being firmly pointed towards the future. Mostly, the album is sweeping and radio-ready while maintaining the intimacy of feeling deeply precious to the person who made it. You can feel the love put into each song and it hugely paid off. I don’t believe in ranked best-of lists, but if I did Star Witness would be my #1.
Dec 31, 2025