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Jessica Mauboy is looking into her future – and embracing what she sees there. Inspired by nostalgic textures and drawn from a feeling of confidence that runs deep in her bones, 'Glow' is the first new music since 2019’s ARIA #1 album Hilda. A reintroduction of sorts to the best-selling, R&B-pop artist, it’s also a shimmering declaration that she's through playing it safe. The light spills out of 'Glow'. It is pop music made divine, magical and mythic. Lyrically, it bottles up the struggle Mauboy felt when she went through periods of intense and acute personal growth – but had to wait for everyone and everything around her to play catch-up. Tired of holding herself back from realising her potential, she forged ahead and, in doing so, found something close to euphoria: Maybe just let me glow / You need to let me go … I wanna do this alone / Let me be the one that I need to be to grow "I got tired of being a 'yes person'. Mentally, it was self-destructive: my body and my mind were saying, Hey, you gotta really take care of yourself. 'Glow' stems from realising it's okay to stop, zoom out and start over fresh." It took time, but fifteen years since she first burst onto the pop charts, Jessica Mauboy started over. By then, she had released seven records which had collected a cumulative 600 million streams, and earned her two ARIA awards and 13 more nominations. Since her debut record Been Waiting, released when she was just 19, went Double Platinum, certifications became almost guaranteed, with two more Platinum releases to follow, in addition to the two Double Platinum soundtracks (for the film The Sapphires and the television drama The Secret Daughter) that showcase her talent behind both the camera and the microphone. After recently bringing her wealth of experience into her role as a coach on The Voice, Mauboy is more assured and determined than ever to extract the most positive and motivating elements of all that she’s learned and done, and infuse them into her new music. To bring ‘Glow’ to life, she assembled a new team and a suite of collaborators. They were restricted, from the start, by lockdowns and border closures, so her dining table became a makeshift studio. It was there that she forged an intense connection with songwriter George Maple. Together, they made it a mission to craft empowered, self-actualised electronic pop with a decidedly personal bent. Throughout the writing process, Mauboy began to remove boundaries around the stories she wanted – and needed – to tell, until she was ready to prioritise comfort over challenges, security over risks and the happiness of others over her own. Through playing it safe, she began to take big leaps. The bold, disco-filtered sound on 'Glow' comes courtesy of electronic savants Cosmos Midnight. "They're the key," Mauboy enthuses, "to translating what my life feels like into sounds." They captured her personal nostalgia of watching her mother dance around the kitchen to Donna Summer, Diana Ross and Cher and made it into something familiar, universal and future-focussed. "I had all the in-depth thoughts while writing 'Glow', but also I just felt sparkly. I felt new. I felt rebooted. And I wanted it to feel like you've known this song forever." "'Glow' came from a place of being in love with myself. And I think everyone has, through these past two years, had time to understand what and who they are. When it does get quiet, you hear and see yourself a little bit more." When she embraced the silence and stillness and looked closely, Mauboy saw a blank canvas woven out of the people, experiences, successes and lessons of her past. Instead of being terrified of its emptiness, she embraced the challenge and filled it in with something optimistic and true. "I really wanted to capture that sense of knowing myself. 'Glow' is my confidence song; It's my reminder that I'm where I need to be, that I'm just being. And that's okay."