Issue 76 / April 2017

MARY
MILLER
Tripping backwards and
forwards in time through
dreamy landscapes, Mary
Miller finds the sweet spot
between retro groove and
futuristic sparseness.
Maybe you’ve caught MARY MILLER at her recent
support slots with Let’s Eat Grandma and Laurel,
and have been entranced by her otherworldly
sparseness (like we have). Her expansive, ambient
soundscapes belie the sparse apparatus on stage: just a
computer, guitar and sequencer, cooking up all the melancholy
of a moonlit drive-in. It’s these understated leanings which give
her music its depth, sweeping the listener into a maelstrom of
shadowy pop hooks and haunting vocals. But let’s go easy on the
hyperbole. “I’m not really a big vocalist, riffing all over the place or
anything like that,” she shrugs.
As it happens, the current style is a relatively recent
development. Miller, who is originally from Blackpool, found that
her whole creative approach altered after she moved to Liverpool
to enrol at LIPA. Inspired by her peers, she began to rethink the
way she made music, finding herself involved with a wealth of
new projects and collaborations.
“I know it sounds cringey, but the music scene here is like a
family,” she notes. “There are so many great bands here, like Pink
Kink and Trudy and the Romance. The first time I visited, I didn’t
like it that much, but after a year I fell completely in love with the
place. I’ve become an adopted Scouser.”
As she says this, a seagull starts having a blue fit in the
background. It sounds like Liverpool really is home. What’s
changed her outlook while she’s been here?
“I was in a duo back in Blackpool and since coming here I’ve
been in a few bands too, but they were more guitar-based. I still
like that kind of music, but as I started listening more and more
to producers, it made me become more experimental. I no longer
wanted to do just guitar stuff on its own.”
So how would she describe the music she’s making
right now?
“It’s kind of difficult to label your own sound. It’s dream
pop I guess, but a little darker, with more cinematic elements.
There are also a lot of jazz, electronic and hip hop influences
thrown in there.”
It’s clear that she draws from a diverse pool of musical cues,
citing a passion for 1950s guitar bands as well as various hip
hop acts when quizzed on her influences. Her track Angling
is a complex evocation of different styles, with its plangent
guitar effects and eerie, disconnected vocal. Another, Property,
experiments with light/dark dynamics and austere synth loops
welded to tightly-paced drum samples. Yet, despite the polished
veneer of the songs she’s shared so far, Miller admits that it’s
taken some time for her to refine her style, and to find the
confidence to get her material heard.
“You end up with a kind
of distorted reality,
because you’ve turned
the original sound on
its head to find a whole
new perspective”
“I was always making tracks in the background, but I kept
it very quiet. I felt scared to put it out there. The other times
I’d made music it was with other people and I’d just been the
guitarist, so that was less intimidating.”
But then again, solo projects give you the freedom to forge
your own path, to build up a sound from a completely personal
catalogue of interests. With this in mind, what is it about the
1950s that intrigues her the most?
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