Mitski’s eighth album is delightfully boundless. She has created a world of intertwining motifs and imagery with the emotional depth of lake Michigan. This, all complimented by a stunning backing band and Orchestra. Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is a sprawlingly beautiful half an hour of music.
On the record, Mitski tells the story of a recluse. A shut-in protagonist, trying to find freedom in isolation. Her character tries to be ‘with other people / without having anyone at all.’ She places our protagonist in scenarios of homely panic. Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s stories of domestic horror and the rawness of Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt cutters, the terrible outside world seeps into our character’s home – leading them to be uncomfortably honest with themselves.
On the opener, In a Lake, warm accordians accompany a lightly plucked banjo. (As our protagonist) she sings about how she couldn’t handle the connection a community brings, how her mistakes would follow her around. The song then shifts into optimism, she compares the wide openess of a lake to the freedom of a big city: ‘in a lake you can backstroke forever / in a big city, you can start over.’ Strings and horns are smoothly layered into the last chorus as it builds into a climatic wall, souding wonderfully similar to Takk.. era Sigur Rós.
If you found any clarity in the softness of In a Lake it is scrappily hurled out of the window and replaced with the existential panic of Where’s My Phone? As the name suggests she cannot find her phone and its really pissing her off. Drums thump along with violins that sound like impending doom. Then a choir comes in like the Christmas carolers you definitely did not ask to come to your door this year, as the song rolls into an absurd, overstimulating mess. It is brilliant and the music video is a mini-masterpiece that captures this. Directed by Noel Paul, who also directed the video for Geese’s Taxes and Danny Brown’s Jenn’s Terrific Vacation. In it, Mitski plays a frustrated lady obsessed with beauty and keeping an insane cast of characters from coming into her home.
Where’s My Phone? and several other tracks feel like a return to the guitar-focused sounds of Bury Me at Makeout Creek and Puberty 2. However, the bulk of the record is Mitski having a go at soft rock. She employs a smooth and swelling steel pedal guitar on many of the songs (Cats, Dead Women, Instead of Here and Charon’s Obol all use it). The result is a billowy Americana sound that blends with Mitski’s gentle voice.
I’ll Change for You is a lovely piece of bossa nova. In the background glasses clink and people are laughing. It sounds like a jazz night in a cozy bar as she croons over lost love and being alone. She gives a masterful vocal performance, her voice tenderly growing with the song to then, at points, become a near wail full of emotion.
My personal favourite track: That White Cat is the story of a Mexican standoff between Mitski and a Cat who has invaded her home. The guitar tone sounds straight out of a Western and Mitski’s vocals ooze tension. The chorus belongs to the cat, it goes: ‘ya ya, ya ya ya, ya ya‘ (sounding more like meows in the song). I love this as I imagine this is the Cat’s unaffected, deadpan response to everything Mitski is saying/screaming at him.
The next song is about dogs. Charon’s Obol is a spiritual tune with gorgeous backing vocals that could easily belong to a Leonard Cohen song. Antithetical to That White Cat, Mitski sings about feeding and caring for a group of dogs left by the previous owners of her house. Its solemn sound transitions nicely to the album closer: Lightning. It is a dark conclusion to the album. Our protagonist seems to have been defeated by their own paranoia, wanting to be struck by lightning and become born again as rain. It is anticlimactic resolution to the story that Mitski delivers with a delicate emotionality.
I believe Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is the best album from Mitski in ten years – since Puberty 2. It is wry, honest and deeply affecting. The songs may or may not be autobiographical, either way, they reflect personal experiences. Mitski has described her music as a place where people “can put all of their feelings, their ugliness, that doesn’t have a place in their own lives.” This sentiment rings especially true with with this album. Mitski has given us a world to escape into, where we can grapple with an increasingly lonely and overwhelming world. A world, lush with meaning, where each time you come back to it, you find something powerful and new.
Nothing’s About to Happen to Me is released on Dead Oceans, listen to it on streaming or buy the record at your local record store or online here
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Article by: Laurie Green
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