Abby Bella May

Abby Bella May writes pop songs like diary entries that grew up on the internet.

Raised in Sydney, she started releasing music as a teenager and slowly stitched together a world of her own: dreamy, low-fi, a little off-kilter, and anchored in hyper personal storytelling. Early singles like Wish We Could Be Friends and Bindii Patch framed her as part of a new wave of Australian dream-pop, pairing floating vocals with production that feels homemade but sharply considered.

Her 2021 debut EP I Am Sensitive pulled those threads into a proper introduction, seven tracks that sit somewhere between bedroom pop confession and late-night dance of feelings you have not named yet. Critics picked up on the mix of intimacy and colour, pointing to her collaboration with producer Oscar Sharah as a key part of the sound, and the EP quietly set her up as an artist to watch rather than a one-off playlist moment.

Since then she has kept building in steady steps: a run of singles, features with other producers, and a growing live footprint that includes being named triple j Unearthed’s Sydney Laneway Festival winner in 2023. That slot, and constant airplay support across Unearthed and triple j, helped move her from online favourite to a recognisable name in the local indie-pop conversation. More recently she has split her time between Australia and the UK, folding that shift into a broader evolution in her writing and production.

Alien, the song she brings to Mood on the Roof, sits right in the middle of what she does well. Taken from I Am Sensitive, it is one of the EP’s standouts, built around a restless bassline and a rush of fizzy, almost sci-fi textures that mirror the title without turning the track into a gimmick. Lyrically, it leans into that feeling of being slightly out of place in your own life, watching yourself from the outside while trying to work out where you actually fit. The production leaves room for the vocal to stay close and conversational, so the song feels like a late-night overshare set against a neon swirl.

On the roof, Alien lands like a snapshot of the world she has been building since those early singles: intimate, a bit surreal around the edges, and tuned into the emotional drama of everyday moments rather than big gestures. It is pop that feels like it started in a bedroom and now has a wider view, without losing the person at the centre.