The new fourth album for Gia Margaret is called Singing. Its title is literal —the 38-year-old Chicagoan songwriter is indeed singing across the record— but also celebratory.

In 2019, touring behind her debut LP, There's Always Glimmer, Margaret lost the use of her voice from illness.

"It was heartbreaking," Margaret recounts. "I felt really confused about who I was. I felt really sad and scared. Singing has always been a way that I process emotion... I didn't realise how much it was tied to my identity. I had been, at least, singing to myself or writing some form of music with lyrics since I was 16.

"When that was taken away, I just felt like: 'who am I if I can not make songs?' It was a bit of an identity crisis."

Thrown into years of vocal rest and rehabilitation, Margaret remained creative. Her 2nd and 3rd LPs (Mia Gargaret and Romantic Piano) were largely-instrumental affairs in which her piano-playing sat at the centre.

Coming out the other side of a long recovery, Singing marks Margaret's happy return to, well, see title.

In conversation with Anthony Carew on The International Pop Underground, Margaret talks about losing her voice, her long journey back, her hopes for Singing, and putting the word 'shit' in a song.

Feature image: Rachel Winslow