Mitski reveals her favourite band
Despite being the queen of sad music, Mitski’s own listening habits are very different. Her musical tastes lean away from the lyric-heavy work she makes; it’s something more left-field.
In conversation with the famous record store, Amoeba, the musician picked out a selection of her favourite albums and films. Offering up a revealing selection of Hayao Miyazaki cartoons, classical music and punk, her tastes are certainly eclectic.
One of her selections comes in the form of Violence Violence, the debut album from the Californian punk band Ceremony. A far cry from the emotional tenderness of her own work, Mitski seems to love the chaos of it, stating, “They sound like ‘ah!’” screaming at the camera.
Moving to the other side of the spectrum, another choice is the classical scores of Dance Suite/Two Portraits Opus Five/Rumanian Dances by Bela Bartok and L’Orchestre De La Suisse Romande. However, this pick isn’t wholly unexpected. Before becoming a leader of the alternative music scene, Mitski was trained classically in composition at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music in New York. “I feel like Bartok actually writes great melodies that we can learn from today,” the musician says, discussing how her classical training still informs her work.
But when it comes to her top choice, Mitski shouts out the band she considers to be her most beloved. “I got a CD of Hypnic Jerks by Spirit Of The Beehive,” she says, adding, “Spirit of the Beehive is a band; actually, I think they’re my favourite band.”
Connecting to her early days as a DIY musician getting to grips with the alternative and underground scenes after her classical days, the band holds a lot of happy memories for her. “They’re a Philly band,” she says, “We played a DIY house show together and I’ve been following them since.”
Attempting to describe their sound, Mitski says, “They would make weird soundscapes then suddenly open up to a super pop melody that you can sing along to and then go back to weird. I think that’s very beautiful.”
Throughout her own discography, the same sentiment could be applied to his work. Regularly moving between sounds, Mitski’s songs range from sparse and stark tracks that centre not much more than her lyricism, into huge roaring guitar tracks with heavy pedal and effect use. Capturing the world’s attention with tracks like ‘Your Best American Girl’ and ‘I Bet On Losing Dogs’, no two Mitski sounds ever sound the same, offering up different sonics and styles with each new release.
