CD Odyssey Disc 1942: Miya Folick

Welcome back, readers. This past weekend I spent my Sunday at the Vancouver Folk Festival which was a delightful musical journey enjoyed in the company of good friends. Plus thousands of people I didn’t know, of course.

The highlight of the show was Anna Tivel, who I heartily recommend to any lovers of folk music out there. Great live, with a lyrical storytelling quality that exists both within her music and the stories she tells in between.

It was also great to see Ken Pomeroy (for the first time) and Tami Nielson (for the second) and just generally enjoy a day of music and companionship.

On to the review…

Disc 1942 is…Erotica Veronica

Artist: Miya Folick

Year of Release: 2025

What’s up with the Cover? A dirt-covered Miya Folick, dressed only in her underwear, strikes an awkward pose.

Is this the morning after a bad night out, or has Folick dug her way out of some shallow grave?

Either way, she seems to be emerging from some kind of harrowing experience and I hope she’s OK. Unless she’s a zombie. Then it isn’t that I don’t wish that she’s OK, but I will just do so at a distance. Safety first!

How I Came To Know It: I became a fan in 2018 when I heard her “Premonitions” record and I’ve been a fan since. This was just me buying her latest release.

How It Stacks Up: I have three Miya Folick records, and of those three one must be last. That one is “Erotica Veronica”.

As this is the final (for now) Miya Folick record currently in my collection, here’s a recap:

1. ROACH: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1687)
2. Premonitions: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1608)
3. Erotica Veronica: 3 stars (reviewed right here)

Ratings: 3 stars

Folick writes thoughtful indie pop music, in a genre that is sort of a slow-jam low key lounge kind of style. It isn’t a style that typically catches my attention but her songwriting is top notch and her melodies are both catchy and unexpected.

Her third record, “Erotica Veronica,” is all those things, although the overall quality of the songs here are a step down from her previous two efforts. Not bad by any stretch, but less powerful overall.

Folick’s vocals remain strong, and she has a whisper to her voice that augments the sweetness of her pop delivery, without overwhelming it. That bit of whisper is what gives all her songs – even the ones I liked less – a magnetic quality as she pushes and pulls you through various emotional states, often within a single song.

The record begins with “Erotica”, which has a twee sort of fairytale quality to it, setting a dreamy tone that echoes through the record. This song is deeply romantic overall, but there’s a distance to it (maybe it’s the echo in the production) that made me feel slightly distant from the vibe Folick is trying to establish.

Arrangement-wise, the record is standard pop fare, with guitar, piano and some string flourishes where called for. There is one unfortunate moment of extended jazz flute on “Felicity” that I could live without, but otherwise I had no serious complaint.

There is also a lean into the drum machine in a couple places (notably, again, on “Felicity”) where I would have preferred a more organic touch. However, that is a part of the soundscape of “Erotica Veronica” and I realized if I spent too much time second guessing the guy on the keyboard/synth I’d be missing out on a lot of thoughtful music.

“Fist” was more my speed, and I’m sure the “good ole regular” guitar strum didn’t hurt in this regard. I also like the way this song can shift from a skip-in-the-step sprung phrasing, combined with long sweeping flourishes that naturally flow into a flourish that feels a bit like ocean waves crashing into the shore. Folick songs like “Fist” go through a lot of movements in the short time available to a pop song.

While the record is solidly indie pop there are undertones of smooth R&B at work. This creates a tension with the folksy narrative quality of the lyrics, like a dance song that never quite lifts you past sway-mode. There’s nothing wrong with sway-mode but living in that crossover area of styles can be both innovative and dangerous. It isn’t that Folick falters while navigating that tricky space, but most songs lacked the edge of previous work. The intense yearning and vulnerability in her voice still won me over, but I admit some of that yearning was an echo from her previous efforts.

And for this reason, despite the favourable three-star rating, and no serious criticism (other than the one bit of jazz flute), I was left wanting just a little more.

Best tracks: Fist, This Time Around, Prism of Light

CD Odyssey Disc 1687: Miya Folick

Happy Saturday! After a long week of work, I am glad to have a day off where I managed to sneak in a quick visit to the local record store. I bought four albums which I will tell you all about…when I randomly roll them. When will this happen? How long, dear readers, must you wait? There is no way to know. That’s how random works.

And on that note, here’s today’s selection.

Disc 1687 is…ROACH

Artist: Miya Folick

Year of Release: 2023

What’s up with the Cover?  Some sort of candid shot of Miya in an outfit that feels like it might be athleisure or maybe a very comfy clubbing outfit.

How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan because of Folick’s 2018 release, “Premonitions” (reviewed back at Disc 1608). This was me checking out her new release. Also, I already knew six of these songs from her 2022 EP, “2007”.

I admit to some annoyance on that front. Putting out half the album a year early as an EP resulted in me having to buy half those songs twice. This is becoming a lot more common these days. It isn’t as bad as the early oughts, when artists would put a new song on their Greatest Hits package to make you buy it, but it is a close second. Please stop this.

How It Stacks Up: I have two full-length Folick albums (I’m dumping the EP since all the tunes appear again here. Argh). Of the two, it is very hard to choose as they are both great, but I’m going to give the edge to “ROACH”.

Rating: 4 stars

Why some pop artists achieve radio fame and others toil in obscurity is a mystery that routinely irks me. It is particularly irksome when I hear a record as consistently good as “ROACH”. Not just because it is a good record, but also because it is catchy. The kids would love this stuff, if only they knew it exists.

The music is a mix of traditional guitar/bass/drum action and synthesizer electronica with Folick’s vocals being the bridge between the different approaches. Both work equally well with her singing. She has a big range, and can evoke girlish, dance-club fun equally well as longing and emotional depth. Sometimes it is both these things at once.

Unlike a lot of vacuous pop music that dominates the airwaves, Folick has something to say. These songs are a window into the life of a woman in her early thirties, coming to terms with a complicated world. Young enough to still remember the breathless wonder of immortality, old enough to finally understand that you no longer are. Worse, that you never were.

“ROACH” explores this world from a lot of facets. Reflections on family and the traits we inherit (“Mommy”), dating a jackass who preys on the growing insecurities of aging (“Nothing to See”) and more than a few outright references to drug and alcohol abuse to salve the various shitty things that the world’s going to throw in your path.

This is a record reflecting on unhealthy levels of self-harm, and the way damaged people tend to pass that damage along.

On, “Nothing to See” the narrator is full of self-loathing as she tries to be what her partner expects her to be, instead of being happy. The imagery is simple but possesses an undercurrent of darkness:

“I know you've been talking to girls on the internet
She's only nineteen and I can't compete with that
I've been trying to change the way I look so you like what you see
I've been losing weight so I can wear these Dolls Kill jeans”

Set against a chorus refrain of “why did I do that?” Folick tries to parse out why you can know behaviour is harmful, and yet do it anyway.

Throughout all this darkness, you see a young woman grappling with how to be a better person, to both herself and others. On “2007” she admits fears and doubt, but for the most part the song is a self-motivational anthem, slow and moody but with an undercurrent of hope:

“I don't wanna be afraid of aging or gaining weight
I want to take up space
I wanna get up real early and stay up late
I wanna smile real big
I wanna fucking live”

And on “Drugs or People” she warns away anyone that might see her descend again into bad habits:

“You think you can handle me
But baby you can't
You think you won't lose your mind
You've already lost half
Don't make me prove it to you
I'm trying not to use
Drugs or people”

I like that this song shows the narrator is not just pushing this new person away because she's concerned about her own propensity to relapse into bad decisions, but because she doesn't want to risk hurting others in the process.

For all the hard conversations and grim battles with life’s challenges, “ROACH” is ultimately a hopeful record. A safe place to be damaged, confident that tomorrow you are going to wake up a little less so.

Folick wraps all these hard ideas in some wonderful and cleverly composed pop songs. You are going to sing along, bob your head, and smile, and within that safe space the music provides, get a little philosophical. It’s a mix of fun, cathartic and intellectually stimulating, and one of the best records 2023.

Best tracks: Oh God, Bad Thing, Nothing to See, Drugs or People, 2007, Ordinary

CD Odyssey Disc 1608: Miya Folick

Reflecting back it has been a hard year, laden with more than a typical share of triumph, tragedy, and toil. As a result I’m a little tired, although that could be slogging through two feet of snow for the last two days. Whatever the reason, I need a break and as it happens here I sit, with the day off! Huzzah.

In other news, it has come to my attention that I mistook the woman on the cover of “Entering Heaven Alive” as Jack White. Er…oops. Apologies to both Jack and the model in question.

Disc 1608 is…Premonitions

Artist: Miya Folick

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover supreme! This is a tilted Giant Head Cover, which is much less common. Also, there are two other heads attempting to horn in, but Miya Folick’s Head is simply too Giant to allow this!

How I Came To Know It: I read a review and decided to check it out. I couldn’t get this one on physical media so I ordered it as a download from Bandcamp instead, which worked just fine. Not my preferred approach to music collection, but more and more a requirement until the world comes out of its stupor and realizes that Compact Disc is a perfectly acceptable way to collect music.

How It Stacks Up: I am on the lookout for Folick’s EP released earlier this year called “2007” but for now, “Premonitions” is the only album in my collection. Consequently, it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

For a record with so many layers of production and sonic swell, “Premonitions” is surprisingly intimate. This is a record that will make you idly sway if you were to hear it in a lineup of a coffee shop (which you won’t, because radio airplay decisions are based on accessibility, not merit). If you are lucky enough to spend a few days with it on your headphones as I just did it will fill you with an ocean swell of emotion and yearning.

Things begin with Miya Folick’s incredible vocals. She has the mysterious lounge-singer tones of k d lang on “Ingénue” combined with the atmospheric techno-siren sound of London Grammar’s Hannah Reid. This is high praise, but well-deserved. Folick has a ton of power and range, but she’s also able to shift from an ethereal head voice to a lower fine-grain sandpaper in her lower register.

Sometimes when you get this much shift in vocal performance it can make a record feel disjointed, but that never happens on “Premonitions”. Part of this is the production and arrangement, which is a primarily pop music vibe, with a soupcon of jazz dance. This sounds terrible to me reading it back, but it is done so well it overcomes my usual reticence for such forms.

More important than the production is Folick’s songwriting. Collaborating with afore-referenced producer Justin Raisen, these tunes pull the light production into dark and intensely personal places. The songs feature plenty of power dynamics – sexual and otherwise – and beneath that much more intimate explorations of self-discovery and triumph.

The record opens with “Thingamajig”, a heartfelt apology that mixes a lighthearted looping of background vocals going “uh uh uh – hay-o” with some of the rawest, most sublime lead vocals you will ever hear. Folick’s apology and surrender so abject it borders on self-hate.

Fortunately the rest of the record contextualizes this song, demonstrating that Folick may be raw at the edges but is very much OK with herself, thank you very much. “Premonitions” encourages a strength in her partner not from a position of surrender, but because the likes to be challenged.

“Stock Image” explores the thin veneer of self-assurance we present the world to hide our doubts and fears. Or as Folick puts it:

“Colour in, colour in
Feeling empty outside of your outline
You scratch at the door of the divine
Within, colour in
You can't stand the greatness of sunshine
You hide in the bones of a stock image”

This reads cold and empty but paired with her voice peeling out in triumph you will here the strength of the song bursting out. Or as she reminds us elsewhere in the tune:

“Don't you get too far from yourself
You're so hard on yourself
Oh, you'll get through
Only hard when you say it's too hard”

That last line is a powerful reminder that how you see the problem is a big part of successfully solving it.

The album came out in 2018, in the birth of the “Me Too” movement and on “Deadbody” Folick sets her sights squarely on those who would abuse their privilege to make it clear their time is over. Folick vibrates with rage and power as she finds her inner rock goddess singing the refrain, “over my dead body”.

“Premonitions” would be a beautiful pop record even if it didn’t have anything to say. It has jump, bounce and brilliant arrangement and vocal performance. However, it is much deeper than that and well worth a deep dive. It didn’t make my Top 10 of 2018 list but that’s only because…I was wrong. I repent: buy this record.

Best tracks: Thingamajig, Premonitions, Stock Image, Stop Talking, Freak Out, Deadbody