How jazz reverberates throughout the sound of Mitski
Since making her debut with the self-released Lush in 2012, Mitski has carved out a place for herself as one of the most delicate and distinctive voices in modern music. She has endeared herself to millions with her vulnerable tales of love and loss, of identity and indecision, shrouding them in layers of swaying strums and the occasional synth.
Praise for Mitski often rightfully focuses on her lyricism, which is poetic and heartbreaking and real all at once, but her warm instrumentation is just as integral to her sound and success. Between the arty sound of Be the Cowboy, the synth excursions of Laurel Hell, and the folk leanings of The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, she’s honed an indie rock style as distinctive as her lyricism and cemented herself as a sad girl indie staple.
Though she exists firmly within those art pop and indie spheres, Mitski has honed a real love for jazz in her own listening habits. While picking out five records she thinks everyone should own during a conversation with Vinyl Me, Please, she devoted three of her picks to jazz records by genre icons Charles Mingus, Theolonious Monk and Chet Baker.
“I get it, Chet Baker’s ‘My Funny Valentine’ is like Jazz Lite for Teenage Romantics,” she said of the latter, “But Chet’s soft grainy voice was made for the warmth of vinyl. Just sit back and feel it.” They’re certainly all worthy picks to own in a physical format, containing all the sonic comfort and cosiness you hope for when you drop a needle onto wax.
But Mitski’s description of Baker is one that could just as easily be applied to her own output. Her voice, and the sonic swells that surround them, seem like they, too, could have been made for the warmth of vinyl. Perhaps this is something she learned from the master himself, and from the jazz she clearly loves so much.
Her knowledge and admiration for the genre seems to reverberate throughout her own music. Though her creations have never delved into full-blown jazz improvisation, there are elements of the genre that seem to have found their way into the flow and complexity of her music.
From her choice to bring the saxophone into her indie pop soundscapes on Puberty 2’s ‘Happy’ to the gorgeous melodies that pervade her entire catalogue, it’s no surprise that she’s a devolved jazz fine. Though there are rarely any overt references in her music, she seems to make art pop and indie rock with her love of jazz in mind, channeling the creative freedom of the genre and all of the warmth it brings with it.
With The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, that warmth was only taken to the next level with dense harmonies and sonic swells. As she borrows from film composers and experimentalists of all kinds, it’s fair to say that her love of jazz likely found its way into the record too.
While Mitski might fill her record collection with Mingus and Monk, with jazz legends, her own output is equally worthy of listening on wax. Just as her thoughts and feelings reverberate throughout it, so too does her love of jazz.
Revisit Mitski’s most recent album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, below.
