When singer-songwriter Holly Macve wrote her third album Wonderland, it coincided with a period of profound transformation – but not in any way she could have imagined. “It's been a time of real change in my life,” she shares. “Moments of extreme highs and extreme lows, it’s just kind of been chaos.” 

The Galway-born, Yorkshire-raised artist has spent the last decade penning immersive, Americana-inspired anthems of love, loss and spiritual searching, revealing a born storyteller with a deep longing for human experiences and a romantic curiosity for the world around her. It’s no wonder her talents caught the attention of Lana Del Rey who, after featuring on Holly’s single ‘Suburban House’ from 2024 EP Time Is Forever, declared her “one of the most beautiful singing voices in the world”.

But the life events that preceded this creative spell would permanently alter her outlook on the world. Back in autumn 2022, Holly was driving down Los Angeles’ famous Mulholland Drive when she was involved in an accident that flipped her rental car onto its side. Remarkably, she emerged unharmed with only a few bruises. “It was a moment that made me feel just grateful to be alive,” she says. “When you go through experiences like that, it gives you a whole new perspective on life.” The very next day, she was in the studio recording with Lana,  “It was all such a whirlwind,” she recalls. 

Having recently come out of a long-term relationship and feeling totally uncalibrated in the thick of her Saturn return, Holly headed to the Golden State to clear her head and rediscover who she was alone, leaving with a renewed sense of purpose and a hopeful outlook that can be heard throughout the album. On title track ‘Wonderland’, which opens with a scintillating golden age overture, she vows in her worldly drawl: “Tonight I will not look back, rose coloured glasses on the past.” That's very much about looking forward rather than back, romanticising the future versus the past,” she says.

When Holly was just six months old, her mother fled an abusive relationship and settled in West Yorkshire with her and her sister. Growing up, she discovered a love of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, along with all things Elvis and Hollywood glamour. “I couldn’t take my eyes off them, I wanted to be them,” she shares. “I am always seeking something that no longer exists”. 

In her twenties, she spent much of her time between the south coast of England and the beach-lined shores of America’s west coast, losing herself in vast, open landscapes and hunkering down in cigarette-stained motels while refining her transportive sound as a multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter. Now three albums into her career – following 2017 debut Golden Eagle and 2021’s Not The Girl – she’s totally at home in her sound, which is the most ambitious and full-bodied it’s ever been.

The songs on Wonderland play like deeply personal diary entries into Holly’s life. “I was just eighteen, days ago, I was a child / It was his birthday / 45 years round the sun / No one seemed to think that I was out of place in the bar / Drinking beer with all his friends,” she sings on ‘Beauty Queen’ against a melancholy piano score and woozy guitars. “I tend to do this thing where I write songs that are super personal, and they’re stories that I’d be afraid to stand on a stage and talk about,” she says. “But for some reason, when I sing about them, it feels right.” Elsewhere, she revisits how her accident brought enlightenment on ‘Coldwater Canyon Avenue’, and ponders the messiness of big ambitions on ‘Dreamer’.

Written over the course of two years and recorded between Holly’s home studio (“a lot of the vocals are just me sat in my bedroom”) and Valentine Studio in LA, she also took the lead on production this time around. “I wanted to try and make a world with it that felt somehow nostalgic and familiar but also new at the same time” she says. That also meant bringing in a trusted circle of collaborators who could help realise her vision, including London Grammar’s Dan Rothman, sound engineer Beatrice Balagna and film composer David Saunders, who performed the cinematic string arrangements. “I've been learning that collaborating is a really good thing, also for my state of mind, because I have this tendency to just do everything myself. I'm very DIY and like to keep my team to people I know and trust,” Holly shares. Even her housemate, fellow singer and film photographer Laura-Mary Carter, shot the Alice In Wonderland-inspired cover art.  

Released via her own label Loving Memory, Holly is taking ownership of her journey in every possible way, optimistic that the future is finally looking a lot brighter. “I think that ‘Wonderland’ is meant to represent the next chapter in my life, which is me being unashamedly myself” she says, “and just appreciating being alive.”