Let’s be honest: most love songs are either shouting from rooftops or weeping into a bathtub. What makes Maddy Low’s “To Be Near” remarkable is that it does neither and still manages to hurt in the best way.
At just 18, Maddy Low (who already has award-winning film score work under her belt, because apparently some people don’t believe in creative rest) releases a song that feels less like a debut and more like a quiet emotional ambush. “To Be Near” is indie-folk at its most self-assuredly understated: clean acoustic guitar, minimal strings, no dramatic build-ups, just a slow and steady walk toward the terrifying possibility of love.
It’s the kind of track that pretends to be simple, until you realize you’re three listens deep and still thinking about one perfectly delivered line like it’s a personal attack. The lyrics aren’t complicated, but that’s sort of the point. It takes a certain amount of confidence to say just enough, then get out of your own way.
Low’s vocals have that same gentle clarity you hear in early Clairo or Punisher-era Phoebe Bridgers, but with a slightly warmer tilt. Less jaded, more… brave? She sounds like someone who knows what’s at stake and sings anyway. It’s refreshingly earnest without veering into saccharine territory which, in the post-Instagram-poetry era of pop songwriting, is a minor miracle.
And yes, it absolutely sounds like it belongs in the midpoint montage of an A24 coming-of-age film where two people almost kiss under a streetlamp but don’t. That’s not a dig. That’s a genre. And Low does it better than most.
The track follows “Games,” a playfully biting single that showed she’s got range and clearly knows how to weaponize both joy and restraint. “To Be Near” is the other side of that coin: vulnerability laid bare, no filter, no flair. Just the trembling moment of “what if?” rendered in melody.
With her headline debut at Auckland’s Big Fan venue coming up and To Be Near dropping June 5 via Timeless Records, Maddy Low isn’t just an artist to watch; she’s one to feel. Quietly, suddenly, all at once.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
