For Us turns out to be an album for everyone

The Mayo native’s emotive brand of dance music may have taken a while to form – but over the past three years, Elaine Mai has been carefully shaping her second album, which will be unveiled to the world later this month.

Mai has roots in Galway indie-pop – some may remember her from dreamy guitar band Go Panda Go – but she established herself as a major figure in Irish electronic music with 2021 LP Home.

Its sequel, For Us, arrived last Friday, eight songs long and littered with collaborations. There are familiar partners for Mai in MayKay and Sinéad White, as well as interesting contributions from Limerick artist MuRli and Soda Blonde’s Faye O’Rourke.

There is little to suggest that this list of people would naturally slot into a cohesive tracklist, but For Us achieves just that.

“It’s probably just a mutual trust and respect, and some kind of affinity with each other,” Mai says of a commonality among the collaborators.

“There are different styles, and the artists are very diverse, so it’s not like anyone is working in the same genre. But what we do definitely have in common is we get on really well.

“Sometimes I’ve been put in a situation where I’ve worked with someone, and we immediately have a rapport. That doesn’t happen all of the time, so I think it’s why I’ve been drawn to these collaborators.

“MuRli’s a good example. I don’t know that MuRli and I would’ve ever crossed paths or come to a collaboration, but we got paired up to do something with Jameson and we just sparked immediately. He’s just so good to work with.”

Mai crafted much of the record alone, in advance of offering her material up to other voices. Most of what you hear now on the album is what came back straight away when the instrumental tracks were sent out to collaborators.

Pictured: Elaine Mai...new album out this month.