Start Listening To: Pop Miri
We got in touch with new artist Pop Miri, who spoke about the influence of her background in neuroscience, her debut single, and some of her favourite music from this year.
The songwriter who would come to perform as Pop Miri picked up a guitar for the first time aged 21 — just after graduating from neuroscience — at long last finding her creative release. Entirely self-taught, she used an 8-track to write and record her initial material: strange patchwork compositions of sparkling lo-fi experimentation, fledgeling guitar, and the outpouring voice of newfound creativity. She was unselfconscious, totally absorbed in the utter joy of externalising all that which simmered inside.
Pop Miri began to bring her creations to the fore in London at the end of 2019, crafting an Avante-Garde, art-rock-esque stage presence, with a performance persona inspired by an eclectic mix of influences including Mitski, Klaus Noemi, and Meredith Monk, and musical sensibilities drawn from the likes of Jenny Hval, Soko and PJ Harvey. It was at one of these shows that she met music producer Ric James, whose close collaboration saw the raw 8track sketch of ‘Mine’ fully realised.
The name 'Pop Miri’, originally chosen as a meaningless moniker, now takes on new forms as both an alter ego and a characterisation of the music itself. ‘Miri’ – translating in its mother tongue to mean ‘Sea Of Bitterness” – gives the light effervescence of ‘Pop’ a darker wash. True to the namesake, Pop Miri’s debut single ‘Mine’ is ethereal but gothic, tender yet haunting; it’s a strange and exacting examination of obsessive love. It leaves its listener suspended in a smokey shadow-world where mundane fantasies take on spectral meanings.
How has it been transitioning from neuroscience to music?
Freeing. After years of studying science, my mind was getting smaller – not bigger. That’s not a hypothesis or anything; more of a metaphor for how I felt about scientific thinking. You memorize patterns, and reapply them in new contexts, taking on new information but somehow learning nothing. Music gave me what I wanted – to break out of forms. I wanted spontaneity, weirdness, visceral emotional realities. But now there’s nobody to put a gold star on my work and tell me if it’s good. There’s no right answers. You’re cast into the abyss and you have to figure it out for yourself. I’m learning how to sit with that discomfort.
Have you taken anything from that period in your life and implemented it in your music? If so, what?
Don’t bother trying things out on rats. They’re not the same as humans.
What inspired you to make music?
At the time I remember feeling like I had all these things inside me, bubbling away, and I thought I’d feel better if I could just get them on the outside instead. But what I actually found is that when you try to put them outside, they just become something different. They multiply, becoming new things. And you don’t ever really get to touch the thing itself. You can only ever move closer and closer to the process of transforming, if that makes sense.
Do you have a typical creative process for your work? If so, what is this process like?
I demo using my 8track a lot, which lends itself to creating these very complicated meshes that basically get written while they’re recorded. Sometimes they end up being totally untangle-able but I love how expressive that can be.
Who’s your pick for the Mercury Awards and why?
Porridge Radio! “Every Bad” is one of those albums that hurts to listen to but in the really, really good way. Dana Margolin is like a knife. I often put Porridge Radio on when I’m struggling to write authentically, to remind me what that really sounds like.
What do you think about the effects of Coronavirus on the live music scene?
Well, it pretty much stinks. One thing I’ve loved about live-streams though is the chance to see artists I look up to performing in a more lo-fi, stripped back way. We’re all, like, 14 again in our rooms with our acoustic guitars. You get to see people just working with their raw materials and that can be a peephole into their creative process. You can start to hear more clearly the foundations of those great songs and how they get built on. It’s changed how I’ve been writing. It’s simplified things.
Do you have any upcoming shows?
I’m immune-compromised, so, for now, I’ve just been focusing on the chance to create without any pressure to bring things to fruition. I’m hoping it’ll soon be time to come out of the hibernation cave, though.
I love the production on ‘Mine’. Can you tell us a bit more about how it was produced?
Yeah! It was produced by Ric James, who’s worked on some really great tracks from deathcrash, YOWL, and Nun Habit, to name a few. When we recorded ‘Mine’, it was my first time in a studio and I was terrified! But he was really gentle with everything; sensitive to my own processes and what I wanted to create. He brought a lot to the track too. He had this crazy tangle of cables and synths that he called a spaghetti junction. He used that to make the synth layers on the track — all the idiosyncrasies in the circuitry and stuff mean you can never properly recreate it.
Who would you most like to collaborate with and why?
Steve Albini — everything he touches is magic!
What are some of your favourite releases from 2020?
So many! Some of my lockdown staples include Fiona Apple’s album “Fetch The Bolt Cutters”, all of Tiña’s new releases, and “Erase Me” by Nuha Ruby Ra.
What does the future hold for Pop Miri?
There’s a couple more tracks waiting to be released so stay tuned!
Where can fans find your new track?
It's a Bandcamp fee waive day today, and 100% of the proceeds for the track will be donated to the Save Sistah Space fundraiser. Sistah Space is a charity dedicated to supporting African & Caribbean heritage woman and girls affected by domestic and sexual abuse. They've been forced to suspend their services in the middle of COVID-19 to fight an eviction notice that would have them move into a smaller and unsafe space, at a time when their caseload has spiked by 300% due to increased domestic violence in lockdown. Read more about their campaign here.
