One of the best artists working in indie rock today is Mitski Miyawaki, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter who released her breakthrough LP, Puberty 2, in 2016. I put Puberty 2 on at No. 2 on my list of the year’s best albums. Here’s what I wrote:
The year’s best “I’m miserable” emo album was made by a 26-year-old Japanese-American woman adept at packing jagged emotion inside noisy, discordant, oddly hooky, and ultimately stunning packages. On “Your Best American Girl” — even if the rest of Puberty 2 was terrible, the album would’ve made my list on the strength of this song alone — Mitski demonstrates a unique ability to musically convey the aching detachment of profound alienation, with surging synths, sputtering guitar, and a bassline borrowed from a thousand ’90s indie-rock songs playing off the slight remove of a beautiful, tortured vocal. Like all of the best records, Puberty 2 feels like living in someone else’s head for 30 minutes.
Mitski recently played at the Pitchfork Music Festival as part of her summer tour. The day after Pitchfork, I caught her show in Minneapolis, and then met up with her for an interview. We discussed her childhood, her approach to songwriting, and the orchestral album she wants to make a little later in her career.
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