A Quick Chat with MF Tomlinson
Hey MF! Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your new album Die To Wake Up From A Dream?
The title seemed eerie to me — it came to me like a forewarning. I’d begun to think of the world as being asleep. So many outrageous things had been allowed to happen, and so much more had been hidden in plain sight. Witnessing all this, but being unable to effect any change, felt like a nightmare. Or a dream.
The key came to me one day at the Tate, during a retrospective on Ilya and Emila Kabakov. Ilya’s work The Labyrinth (My Mother’s Album) is a large-scale installation of narrow corridors — a maze-like double spiral meant to resemble a dishevelled Soviet housing block. Pages from his mother’s diary hang on the walls, recounting her life in the USSR. The endless maze becomes a metaphor for how she could never escape the global events that shaped her life.
“All the corridors of my life, from earliest childhood on, have been connected with [the] torture of endless anticipation.” — Kabakov
That anticipation definitely features in the album. But what stuck with me most were the final pages of Bertha’s diary, written in a house her now-famous son had bought for her. She was living quietly, and reflected that — all things considered — she’d had a pleasant life. That she’d been fortunate.
While she may have been more fortunate than many, I was struck by the human ability to rationalise and compartmentalise nearly anything to survive. That thought hit me hard. I started confronting everything I’d rationalised in my own life, and it framed how I saw the world. It’s an unnerving idea — it might seem fatalist, but for me, it falls into my favourite paradigm: comforting nihilism. I believe it speaks to the incredible power and paradox of hope.
When I started recording, my goal was to reach internal depths. What emerged, though, was something else entirely: an urgent mapping of the world in which we live. There’s more to say, but that’s probably enough for question one.
The last and most important thing to say is that I think it was the players — more than anything — who inspired me to make this record. With them. Together. I knew we could do it.
You’ve been based in London for a while now. Has that distance from home changed how you write?
Definitely. In any place there’s a feeling of otherness and a feeling of belonging — both more keenly felt as a foreigner. Then there’s the anonymity a big city gives you. And of course, being away from family is both a blessing and a curse, and ultimately, it’s inspirational — for better and for worse.
I’m On The Border was written specifically from that standpoint — being a foreigner. Navigating the ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy (that’s the official name) shone a light on how unjust border systems can be. As Australians, I think we’re starting to get a decent education on these issues, which puts us ahead of places like the UK, where it’s still a sleeping giant. But I digress — just keep caring about strangers, people!
Environments shape music. It’s the weather, the music around you, cultural touchpoints, and even the physical space you have to make music in.
This record feels massive. What was the process like?
Massive!
We recorded it line by line, one instrument at a time. All the orchestral sections were made by just a few players. Some sessions had over 400 tracks. Because of that, every part had the chance to be the best it could be — but it was a real slog. Everything felt set to “super hard mode,” in life and in music. People were exhausted, and the songs asked a lot.
But there was joy in it too — it felt like a defiant middle finger to everything trying to stomp on artists in this city, and around the world. It shouldn’t have been possible to make this record — and yet, here it is.
Recording each part in isolation was a necessity. We had a tiny room and no time to rehearse. But the beauty of that limitation was being able to place a sound anywhere in the dreamscape that became the record. We captured ambiences by recording playback in real churches and modular synths.
Why it’s so massive? Because sometimes life feels simple, and sometimes it feels vast, massive, fucked up — and still intensely beautiful and true. This was one of those times.
Hope is clearly a big theme. Do you actually feel hopeful these days?
The crux of the album is that as long as we live, we can’t help but hope — it’s the fuel we burn. Without it, we’re lost.
To pick up that spark from the Kabakovs — everyone’s self-belief wavers. What keeps us going? It seems we don’t even need to believe in order to hope — we’re going to do that anyway. We’re hardwired to find a reason to go on, even when there is none. That’s an incredible reserve of power.
Hope reveals itself as a paradox at the heart of human experience. If we’re cursed to hope, we’re also given the power to make our hopes a reality. Once we realise that, the choice becomes clear: carry on asleep, or wake up. Choose the latter and we can decide what to do with our power. Thelma and Louise that shit. Ride the bomb.
So, do I feel hopeful? Depends on the day. But the real answer is — I can’t help but hope. Running into this maze was brutal, and probably a response to the lack of hope I consciously feel. But spiritually? I’m buoyant. Die To Wake Up From A Dream is about raising that sunken ship we all find ourselves in — about having agency and living joyfully, even with full knowledge of how fragile we are.
That’s how I feel.
Do you have a favourite moment on the album, or a track that still gets you emotionally every time?
Bullet points for this one:
When I explain the story of My Hand In Yours, it makes me want to cry.
I’ll never forget hearing the explosion of drums in Your Flight (Dying/Another Dream) for the first time — I leapt from my chair and started jumping around the studio.
The moments in A Meadow Part II set in Australia still feel deeply transportive.
But honestly, this is the story of my life — so basically, all of it.
For someone who’s never heard your music before, where should they start?
Probably Blink & You’ll Miss It for this album, but the Meadow suite works too. Over the past five years I’ve been lucky to release a lot of music. Some folks might also dig:
Them Apples for the psych fans
Winter Time Blues for the folk rock heads
End of the Road for the trad heads
Wild Horses for the post rock heads
What would you say defines you as an artist?
I’m always on a deep dive. I often wish I wasn’t, but that’s just how I’m wired.
I’m a songwriter. Songs are imagined until you make them with sound — something real — and I use that to describe reality. It’s just my reality, of course, but I believe that’s the whole point. Art is one of the primary ways humans explore what it means to be human. It expresses what’s invisible — and shared.
That probably sounds pretentious, but only because it’s trying to describe something so simple and true. Yes, you can write songs without that deep communicative purpose — but I’m always diving deep. To me, this album is like a tapestry of real things. Like court oil painting. Like VR. The truest thing possible — hyper-real. A projector out of me and into you.
How would you describe your sound for someone scrolling past?
Recently, a review said I was “a maverick outlier worth keeping both eyes on.” That felt right.
If we wanted some clickbait for this album, I’d say it’s kinda like…
Scott Walker x MBV
OR
Bill Callahan x King Crimson
OR
Pavement x Pink Floyd
What are some things people might not know about you that feel important?
Tough one. I’d say: listen to the music — it’s all in there.
But if you do need a little more:
I’ve been writing songs all my life.
I’ve played in lots of bands.
My grandfather was a poet.
I’m addicted to hot sauce.
Oh — and if you’ve got a good pair of over-ear headphones, please listen to Die To Wake Up From A Dream LOUD. That’s when the best “wall of sound” stuff happens. Brian Wilson talks about Phil Spector inventing “combination sounds” in recording. That’s what we were trying to do. Create an immersive place — like Only Shallow, Be My Baby, and ’Til I Die.
How’d we do? :) Thanks for reading/listening. TTFN.