Musical inspiration has seemingly always come easily to Illy (AKA Al Murray), one of Australia's most compelling MCs. Since the Melburnian premiered with 2009's Long Story Short, home to the triple j fave Pictures, he's been on an upward trajectory. Murray crossed over with It Can Wait (certified Gold!) off his ARIA-nominated blockbuster The Chase. Now the Obese Records stalwart is preparing to unleash a third album, Bring It Back. Nevertheless, Murray stresses, it's not the official follow-up to The Chase, but rather something to placate fans.

Incredibly, last summer the industrious rapper experienced a creative block – which, ironically, only ended when he wrote about it in this year's Top 50 single Heard It All. “I was just finding a lot of the stuff that I was doing had been done,” Murray explains. Still, he maintains that his stalling has been over-dramatised. “It was never a serious thing. It's been made out like it was this really awful writer's block, but it was never like that. It was just a little bit of a dry spell in terms of inspiration.” The trick, he realised, is to aim to put a fresh spin on old topics. “Most things have been done before – every sort of idea has in one way or another been done before. Making it new is the way that you spin it. Putting a spin on something can make it be entirely awesome – and a new perspective can give it a completely new life.”

Murray has just aired another single, Where Ya Been (featuring Pez), the album due next month. (“It's been finished since April – we've been waiting for Obese to give it a release date.”) In the meantime, he's hitting the road. So what of Bring...? “It's basically a little bit of a passion project that I've wanted to do for a while. It's a lot more of a traditional Aussie hip hop-sounding album, as opposed to The Chase or any of the stuff that I've put out 'til now. It was a chance to work with a lot of friends within the scene. I usually keep the features and the people I'm working with very close – small circle. I was really able to branch out this time. We're working on the sequel to The Chase at the moment, but this was more of a passion project, something that's tied people over, tied myself over as well – because obviously the follow-up to The Chase is gonna require a bit of time to get absolutely perfect.”

He specifies of Bring..., “It's an album in its own right, but it is a very different-sounding one and it's something that I've just wanted to do.” Heard... is “the most stereotypically Illy-sounding track,” and “by far the most pop-influenced,” on an otherwise street (or mixtapey) LP. And, yes, Murray collaborated more with buddies, especially MCs. In fact, he started the album “just mucking around” – the rapper traded tracks with the likes of Funkoars' Trials over the Internet. “We got a whole bunch together and it was like, 'Wow, these are different and we should probably release these – they're good enough to be released.' So it just came about that way.”

It's all a far cry from Murray's electro-pop smash It Can Wait with former Australian Idol contestant Owl Eyes (Brooke Addamo). Jan “J-Skub” Skubiszewski, who produced the song, was then also working with Addamo on her cosmic pop. “At that point she hadn't really been doing that much, she was just starting out, so it was a good springboard for her and it was perfect for us 'cause she's a really amazing singer.” Skubiszewski isn't involved in Bring..., but Murray will “definitely” be hooking up with him again. As it happens, both are sometime members of Melbourne's Crooked Eye fam, along with Phrase, M-Phazes and the neo-soulster Daniel Merriweather. Merriweather discovered Murray and introduced him to Phrase – and Crooked Eye. Though scattered, they all remain friends.

Murray vibes with M-Phazes “non-stop”. The MC would “love” to have Merriweather, currently based in New York, on a track. (“He's a hard man to get onto.”) Alas, Murray's original mentor has spoken of retiring from music, disappointed with the response to 2011's Babylon. “Phrase is obviously taking some time off music – I'm not sure what his deal is,” says Murray. Funnily, Phrase's manager (and another Crooked Eye affiliate) DJ Flagrant provides cuts on Bring...

Australian hip hop has never been as viable but, as Phrase's story shows, it's still a struggle. “There's a lot less of the push that the overseas acts get in terms of commercial radio and TV and everything – there's a lot more money involved in those sort of acts,” Murray considers. “At the end of the day, there's only so many people in Australia and there's a smaller fraction of them buying and supporting local music – or music in general – and then there's an even smaller fraction of them who are gonna support Aussie hip hop, so it's really just a maths thing. There's just not enough people that everyone can be supported all the time – as much as that sucks. I'd love if everyone I came up with, and have been friends with over the years, was able to blow up, but it's just not possible. The numbers are too small here. That's not just talking about Phrase, that's everyone in general.

“I think Babylon is one of my favourite albums of last year – it was massively slept-on. But it's just there's not a huge amount of wiggle room to make it work and to really take risks – and that was a really risky album. So, yeah, it sucks. But Phrase is hugely talented. If he gets back into the studio, whatever he's gonna do is gonna be dope, so it's just whether he can be bothered doing it, I guess,” he laughs ruefully.

Murray is unimpressed by much of today's mainstream US hip hop – indistinguishable from EDM and governed by a monotonous “formula”. He's not feeling the Euro beats of Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj. “I definitely think that it's a really shit trend. It's not innovative, it's not new; it's just following a trend – that's all it is. It's purely doing what's popular at the moment. There's no lasting quality to music like that.” Murray admires Jay-Z, Kanye West and “even” Lil Wayne for transcending such fashions – they have “integrity”. The rest are “puppets”.

However, Murray, conducting interviews from Sydney (“my girlfriend lives in Sydney, so I'm up here all the time now”) is generally upbeat about music – and life – in 2012. He'll enjoy a holiday in Thailand before embarking on this month's Bring... album tour. And Illy fans can expect to hear “a handful of tracks from the new album” plus “all the hits” (and possibly some of his 'Friday Flips' covers with M-Phazes). Indeed, Murray has no reason to wait for the album's release to share the material. “We wanna get stuck straight into the next album, so I think this will probably be the only tour we do until early or mid next year – so, yeah, may as well get it all out now.”