London-based producer, singer and songwriter MISOGI is sort of a reverse musical chameleon, blending different palettes into complementary shades that somehow end up fitting what he’s doing seamlessly. Specialising in smooth electronic indie, the result is a kind of modern pop that allows him to effortlessly collaborate with a huge breadth of artists – No Rome, nothing,nowhere and Master Peace to name a few – while the songs remain entirely his own. On his new EP, ‘little*stars’, he showcases what he can do. It’s “the culmination of about seven years of musical exploration and discovery,” he explains. “All the elements from my previous projects have fused together in a sort of harmonious and unique way that I believe represent my journey best.” Give it a listen below, and find out more about each of the tracks, from MISOGI himself.
Monopink Dream, 2001
This wasn’t the first song that I started for the EP, but it is the first song where I figured out the lyrical direction and motifs that ended up being consistent throughout the record. The themes of escapism through things like sleeping and daydreaming came very natural to me because it’s just what I do anyway. The twist here was that these themes are typically presented in a melancholic manner when other artists talk about it, but that’s not the type of role it plays in my life, it’s much more playful and fun than that. It was also the first time I had written a hook that made me think “Wow, this is that sort of infectious melody you find in pop music”. It was a real breaking point.
Heart Chained (feat. Master Peace and No Rome)
The instrumental for this song was originally a sort of bay area type beat for an artist that didn’t end up using it, but I really liked the chords on it, so I didn’t want it to go to waste. I rearranged it to be more of a UK dancehall beat which fit me much better, then I recorded a quick hook on it and put a snippet of it on my private Instagram, to which Rome replied and said he wants to get on it. Peace saw a picture of Rome on my Instagram story and asked me to get him in touch with him because he was a big fan, and that’s how it all came together. You could thank Instagram for this song’s existence, I suppose.
Empty Since 16 (feat. Dylan Brady)
Ryanjacob had sent me the stems of this beat he made with Dylan, and it was really good, so I tried to record on it. It wasn’t really working, so I decided to rework the whole thing from what was sort of a rap beat to a pop beat. The song is more based around adolescence, specifically the Generation-Z experience of being an introvert and spending all your time on the internet in those years. It’s a very interesting subject to me because no other generations will have ever experienced this at such a large scale, simply because the internet is still so new. There’s a lot of things you see and experience that haven’t really been researched because of how new it all is so this generation are sort of like guinea pigs when it comes to the effects of long term internet usage and addiction.
Pyreflies (feat. nothing,nowhere. and Lil West)
Before this EP, I dropped a few singles that were more hip-hop based, and I thought they acted well as a bridge between my old and new styles, and I wanted to bring that style back for one of the songs on this EP. To keep with the theme of revisiting an older style, I decided to get 2 of my oldest friends in music to help out – nothing,nowhere and Lil West are both artists that I’ve been a fan and friend of since 2015. I think it’ll be a fan favourite and one that I’ll look back fondly on.
forget—me—not! (feat. Instupendo)
This was the first song I’d started for this EP, and the main idea was to take an older song of mine and recontextualise it into a newer song to once again bridge the gap between the old and the new. I felt like it would be a display of where I’ve come from compared to where I am now, and I think it succeeded in doing that. The sample is from my old song ‘Clairvoyant’ which I had in turn sampled from an artist on SoundCloud called Tokyoghost. This song turned out to be one of my biggest songs and one my fans talk to me about to this day, so I thought I’d let the sample serve as an easter egg for the older fans. Instupendo is someone I’ve known of and been friends with for years, we had been trying to make a song together for a while, and this was finally the one that worked. I felt that there was no one better for the job.
1 Star Life
For the outro of the album, I tried to round up all the sentiments featured in the previous songs and give some insight into the pessimistic side of the daydreamer character I’ve sort of created on this EP. As optimistic as anyone might be, there’s always those thoughts that get you down sometimes. This song is about not giving up in the face of adversity, and I think that’s a very nice note to end the project on.
MISOGI’s EP’ little*stars’ is out now.
