Miss Grit is the project of New York-based Korean-American Musician Margaret Sohn. After returning from a particularly gruelling tour for their previous album, Follow the Cyborg, they sought to capture the spontaneous joy of creation. However, post-tour anxieties meant that the music became more personal than they could have ever imagined, with Sohn distancing themselves from the cyborg persona they had created on their debut to reveal something far more visceral and raw.
Under My Umbrella is a singular album that occupies its own time and place. It pulses with intensity and urgency, reminding you of the power of electronic music to lead you down the darkest emotional alleyways. This is futuristic, hallucinatory electronic music from the soul.
The album opens in cinematic fashion with sweeping synths signalling the start of their musical journey on “Tourist Mind”. Before long, the song wavers, eventually surrendering to a surge of pulsing synths and rapid-fire beats. It’s a hugely impressive introduction with the dynamic, textured production making their ambition clear from the outset. The mesmerising “Mind Disaster” continues in a similar vein with rapid thumping beats framing their ethereal vocals. It gracefully edges forward, then becomes increasingly frenetic as keyboards and percussion duel for attention.
The elegant electro-ballad, “Won’t Count on You”, swells with sighing melancholy. Over fluttering electronics, they pull back from the world instead, relishing self-care and retreating from their insatiable quest for external validation that can never be truly satisfied. Before the song cracks under the emotional strain, it finds release in the acid-techno finale. “It Feels Like” features fragile synths that revolve around a simple guitar riff that reels you in. It steadily grows in intensity as they struggle to come to terms with the fact that we can never truly understand the motivations of those we love. Instead, relying on intuition that, at best, can be unreliable and, at worst, lead to rejection.
“Where Is My Head?” acts as the centre piece of the album. Musically, it’s a more dreamy offering with only a metronomic beat and rumbling synths to guide it through the haze. It’s the sound of someone seeing the definite lines of their reality start to blur as they look to evolve. The trip hop meets synthwave “Stranger” features one of the standout choruses on the album. Miss Grit explores the idea of wanting to escape oneself (I wanted to run faster) in an attempt to carve a space in society all of our own.
The theme of transformation returns in “You Will Change”. As undulating waves of electronics roll in, Miss Grit looks to the future with an air of positivity. Initially sparse, the track adds coarser layers and rougher textures that take time to reveal themselves. “Overflow” finds them overwhelmed by external and internal pressures that need to be released somewhere. Eventually, they feel the freedom of their spilling over, reflected in the music that blends throbbing electronics, shimmering synths, and more caustic guitars into a hurtling missile of noise.
Album closer, “Waste Me” is a haunting, skeletal electro-ballad. Thematically, it ends with Sohn having expended every ounce of emotional energy on what has come before. It’s the sound of an artist trying to locate their sense of self as they explore feelings of isolation, seeking to bridge the gap between what is felt and what can be truthfully expressed. It’s a profoundly intimate and almost painfully honest song that also serves as a moment for the listener to reflect on their ever-shifting identity.
Under My Umbrella serves as a map through the maze of Miss Grit’s deepest anxieties and heartbreaks. What could feel almost unbearably personal is alleviated by the power of the music, which shifts from sparse trip hop to expansive electropop. Her noirish electronic soundscapes are the perfect bed to articulate an often fraught artistic journey. A gruelling yet gorgeous exorcism of the soul that leaves Sohn transformed and the listener deeply affected.