Exclusive: Five Minutes with MIYNT

MIYNT is an eclectic indie-influenced artist that’s steadily been catching our eyes with her eclectic style and work. Her debut EP titled Ep no. 1 will see a fall 2016 release via B3SCI Records, and in preparation of her release, we sat down to catch up with her day.

Hi there, how are you and what are you up to today?

I’m good, just finishing off some lyrics for a track I did last week. I’m also waiting for a visa to go back to LA so I’m kind of living in limbo at the moment which is weird.

To those not familiar with you, how would you describe your sound?

A friend of mine told me that it sounded like a mix between The Cardigans, Gorillaz and Lana del Rey, which I took as a huge compliment. I guess it’s kind of a mix of genres. Right now I’m going more towards a plain acoustic sound though.

What are the 5 most influential albums that have influenced you the most?

Nick Drake – Family tree
PJ Harvey – Let England shake
Skriet – Shanana
Peter Moren – Pyramiden
The Strokes – Is this it

Which other artists are you into at the moment and why?

I just discovered Angel Olsen, and now I’m a big fan. I really like her melodies and voice.

Are there any key pieces of equipment that you are using to define your sound?

My voice.

What would you say some of the challenges artists face today in the music industry?

Maybe containing a long and great career along with the high consumption of music that cyberspace provides. That people tend to not give songs or albums as much time as when you had that record in your hand and were forced to listen to it multiple times. Until you started to like it and became familiar with the songs. The art of recognition, that’s probably why a lot of pop songs sound similar. Or ”hit songs”. The (commercial) pop industry of today does not seem to trust that the audience is gonna listen more than 20 sec so then it’s important to give them something they’ve already heard. Unless you are Rihanna, then you can be experimental. I find that boring and hope that it changes a bit. I can’t tell if the music-industry in general is more challenging today, I think it always had challenges but they are changing shapes over time.

Where do you gather song writing inspiration?

Love, birds, the ocean, internet, life, music, industrial environments and stripes.

Take us through your songwriting process. Are there any particular steps you take when put music together?

Well, I need a good baseline – that’s for sure. When I write/produce for myself I often just get in some sort of mood where I don’t really think at all, I just do it. And then I probably take a long walk listening to it and get confused over what I just made. Sometimes I make everything at the same time (instrumentation, melodies, lyrics). And sometimes I make one part first and let it rest for a while. It’s always different.

If you weren’t a musician what would you be?

A psychologist or film director.

Do you have any particular gigs or festivals that you dream about playing?

Montreux jazz festival would be cool. But I would say somewhere with an audience, a tropical island would be nice.

If you could perform alongside any other band or artist, who would it be?

I was thinking Bowie first if he were still here. But then I could not do that because I would be too taken away by him. It would be fun to do something random, maybe like Nina Simone, Yung Lean and a big kids choir. I would be more of a ”sound-person” in that constellation, standing with a sampler thing in the background, just bending all of their sounds. Being in control over the distortion and harmonies in a way that some would consider innovative but most would consider really bad. But that wouldn’t really matter because we would have an insane lightshow projected on us. That would be fun. Maybe that’s the challenge for really big artist in the music industry today, to get their sound to shine through their own visuals and their songs to matter more than their Instagram accounts.

Do you have any information regarding upcoming releases, projects or gigs in the pipeline that you would like to tell us about?

My EP thats called Ep no. 1 Is coming out 16 of September.