Long before she released three extended plays in the waning days of 2018, the artist now formerly known as Ms. Indie Pop had nourished a childhood relationship with music based on the classic bands of her parents’ generation and whatever she heard on the radio. Groups like The Beatles and The Carpenters embedded themselves in her memory and her daily absorption with the radio led her to start committing her favourite songs to tape.
Then a teenage obsession with Joey, Pacey, Jen and no doubt the man himself in the midst of the yearning melodrama of Dawson’s Creek provided the crux of her fast-growing record collection, with the show spotlighting not only Paula Cole’s famous theme but a slew of other alternative rock artists. Chantal Kreviazuk and Sarah McLachlan or Savage Garden and Barenaked Ladies were among the most prominent recurring features but there were many more besides.
On those extended plays from late 2018 entitled Circle, Square and Triangle her influences remained deeply rooted as Ms. Indie Pop began to manifest a music full of widescreen whimsy yet styled with a more contemporary synth-pop sheen. Glitching electronics and mournful keys, gossamer reeds and the tremulous reverberations of her vocals called to mind early Grimes and Kedr Livanskiy or more mysterious, even glossolalic fare by Julee Cruise, Angelo Badalamenti and Cocteau Twins.
Then a week before she was scheduled to start performing as Ms. Indie Pop, she began to suffer from a mysterious illness which culminated in surgery. Adopting the stage name mioriii, now on Nature’s Way the Japanese musician constructs an ode to the process of healing, foregrounding her voice on the album’s opening and closing tracks while its three instrumentals float with a sinuous shimmer, sometimes submerged and sometimes carbonated, echoing the walks along riverbanks and through nearby parks which during her convalescence have become part of her daily routine.
