MCD- Miya Folick

MCD Presents 

Miya Folick + Guests 

Friday October 28th 

Tickets @Ticketmaster 

When searching for a path to navigate through shame, grief, and the specific loneliness

that accompanies you even in a crowded room, look no further than the lyrical map-

making of Los Angeles based artist Miya Folick. Since her critically acclaimed debut

album, Premonitions, came out in 2018, Miya has been traversing some challenges of

her own. Letting yourself down, finding new ground, coming-of-age kind of challenges.

They all appear with fierce clarity on Miya’s new EP, 2007. An exhilarating mix of

sounds and styles, an eclecticism that reflects Miya’s increased writerly confidence and

playful disposition. These songs are about discovering that intensity doesn’t always

equal chaos. Sometimes excitement and joy and humor can be found in the quiet, out-

of-the-way places you never thought to look.

Premonitions was rightly praised for how it showcased Miya’s arresting, athletic, once-

in-a-lifetime voice. As soon as it was completed, though, Miya knew there was a deeper

and more honest place she wanted to live, lyrically. Some of the language on

Premonitions she describes as “a little bit opaque,” saying, “I was writing from a place of

fear. I didn’t want to look at myself directly, so I created lyrical obscurities. It felt like I

was masking my insecurities with poetry. Putting Premonitions out into the world and

singing those songs on tour made it very clear to me that I wanted to make songs where

I was not hiding.” She was determined for her subsequent project to be more direct and

honest, an aesthetic dealbreaker that begot a great deal of in-studio trial and error, with

Miya eventually recruiting behind-the-scenes personnel who brought out the best in her

and in the music, including producers Gabe Wax (War on Drugs, Fleet Foxes) and Mike

Malchicoff (King Princess, Bo Burnham), among others.

Listening to the finished EP, it’s immediately obvious that all the effort and

experimentation was worth it. Lead single “Oh God” commemorates the exact moment

she realized her life needed to change, with a soul-stirring chorus on which Miya almost

seems to harmonize with the divine; it’s part lightning-strike epiphany, part elegy for the

rollercoaster romance of youth. “Bad Thing,” which she co-wrote with Mitski and Andrew

Wells, is a paradoxically blissed-out burst of dancefloor-ready melancholia, with frank

lyrics about the hazards of hedonism: “Wake up, hand upon my forehead / Can’t believe

this is the way I live.” Miya’s percussive diction steers the song’s momentum, proof that

her voice is a singularly prolific instrument, even when it’s not doing gravity-defying

acrobatics.

2007 is an exhilarating mix of sounds and styles, an eclecticism that reflects Miya’s

increased writerly confidence and playful disposition. There’s a turn-of-the-century pop-

rock quality to “Nothing To See,” an angsty earworm with a hand-plucked acoustic riff

and hyper-specific lyrics about conforming to someone else’s expectations: “I’ve been

trying to change the way I look so you like what you see / I’ve been losing weight so I

can wear these Dolls Kill jeans.” On the EP’s title track, Miya’s unaffected, angelic-

sounding voice is cocooned by warm folk rock. The Matias Mora-produced “Cartoon

Clouds” embraces glitchy bedroom-pop of the delicate and handmade-feeling

persuasion. “I feel like people always want me to choose one. Either you're indie girl or

you're pop girl,” Miya says, reflecting on past production experiences. “But that’s not the

kind of choice I want to be making. The choices should always be in support of the song

feeling true to itself.”

The Chicago songwriter Gia Margaret adds piano to the EP’s closing track “Ordinary,” a

soulful song that recalls Mazzy Star’s wide-open dream-folk. “Our life is small but it’s big

enough for me,” Miya croons, emphasizing hers newfound interest in manifesting a

simpler way of living. Like a lot of creatively restless minds, Miya has always felt drawn

to intense emotions, intense people, and intense experiences. These gorgeous new

songs — a long-awaited return from a singular talent — are about discovering that

intensity doesn’t always equal chaos. Sometimes excitement and joy and humor can be

found in the quiet, out-of-the-way places you never thought to look.