MITSKI
Mitski | Credit: Ebru Yildiz
Mitski, born in Japan, grew up listening to folk and Japanese pop music. Eventually, she made a move to New York after hopping around to other countries with her family to live. Now at 25 years old and living in Brooklyn, she self identifies as a Japanese/American, but between her nomadic child life she sometimes feels a bit out of place as she sang in her latest album, Puberty 2.
Released in June 2016 on Dead Oceans, an indie label based in Bloomington, Indiana and Austin, TX, the album explores the tug and pull of happiness and sadness, as a true romantic would. As she expressed in her bio commentary, “Happiness is up, sadness is down, but one’s almost more destructive than the other…When you realize you can’t have one without the other, it’s possible to spend periods of happiness just waiting for that other wave.”
That wave of tension is evident in her flirty rendition “Your Best American Girl,” in which she croons about her longing for a particular all-American Boy. “You’re the one/ You’re all I ever wanted/I think I’ll regret this…”
Yet, as the song unfolds, she begins to confront her identity and how it relates to dating American males. “Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me…” she sings.
The song opens up gently with soft folk vocals and steadily builds when pop-punk guitar rifts are introduced, dramatizing the narrative . The accompanying music video is a real visual treat and underscores her romantic side. In it, a couple is seen smooching and heavily petting throughout the video. Mitski, on the other hand, has a little love affair with her… hand. You see her kissing her palm and licking her fingers, in between the couple’s makeout scenes
Puberty 2 follows her 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. Her latest body of work’s, she revealed in her bio, is a progression from the 2014 work. “It’s similar in sound, but a direct growth from that record. Musically, there are subtle evolutions: electronic drum machines pulse throughout beneath Pixies-ish guitars, while saxophone lights up its opening track.”
Mitski performs w. Fear of Men and Weaves 9:30pm Friday, November 12 at Gramps. Doors open 8pm www.mitski.com
~Andrea Richard
