To make her new album, Light, Dark, Light Again, Angie McMahon had to walk through the fire. The Melbourne singer-songwriter’s second LP was written from the ashes of a tough but transformative few years of relationship changes, private breakdowns and core-shaking revelations about self. At times, McMahon felt like falling apart. But instead, she pushed through and found that hope, joy and relief lies on the other side of pain.

The inevitability of change, the push and pull and between light and dark, and the natural cycles of the world are all over Light, Dark, Light Again, which marks McMahon’s step into a bolder, bigger, brighter expanse of sound than she has utilised before. Whether she is documenting her own metamorphosis on Saturn Returning, rumbling with rage, power and reverence for the earth on Mother Nature, celebrating release on Letting Go or pledging to step into the bravest version of herself on Exploding, McMahon’s songs feel like a triumph; music that buoys and cradles you.

Light, Dark, Light Again is a record about facing the fear and learning it can be a portal to something bigger and better. It finds that the only certainty in life is that everything ends, and everything begins again – that there is life and death and life again, that there is light and dark and light again.