Vocal Fry

Mitski warmly recalls a quote from sculptor El Anatsui, “Art grows out of each particular situation, and I believe that artists are better off working with whatever their environment throws up.”
With this nerve exposed lyrically, and having dived into her new beginning, Mitski chooses her 2014 breakthrough album Bury Me at Makeout Creek to explore uncharted sonic territory, trading in large string arrangements for guitar and bass. While studying composition at SUNY Purchase’s music conservatory, she previously recorded music with a full orchestra. However as college graduation inched closer, Mitski moved away from the concert hall and into the campus’ active DIY scene. Upon relocating to New York following graduation, she entered stages at Death By Audio, Silent Barn, and Bed Stuy basements, entrenching her songs of love, fear, lust, and brilliant clarity into entirely sympathetic ears.

Since releasing Bury Me at Makeout Creek in November 2014 via Brooklyn-based label Double Double Whammy, Mitski has received international acclaim for her distinct, arresting sound and profoundly reflective lyrics. Pitchfork applauded the release as “inventive and resourceful,” while Rolling Stone celebrated her “deep-cutting lyrics.” NME said of Bury Me, “it’s a record that doesn’t tug at your heart-strings as much as it mercilessly pounds at them, taking to your emotions like a lead pipe to a piñata.” She has also received widespread attention for her “cathartic” live shows as dubbed by The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica.

“I was so young when I behaved 25,” Mitski sings on “First Love / Late Spring,” “yet now I find I’ve grown into a tall child.” This veritable thesis speaks to sentiments of the poetry and beauty of struggling up the hill to adulthood. Mitski follows El Anatsui’s humbling advice, cathartically revealing snapshots from her adventures in youth, and the empowerment found in sharing these stories with others. In 2015 Mitski is poised to continue delivering her particular flavor of soul-baring rock, and tour throughout North America and beyond.


I was born in Washington DC and grew up in Los Angeles. Since then, I've lived in Iowa, Nicaragua, New Haven, and New York. I've worked as a baker, an office temp, an innkeeper, a tutor, and a medical actor. Every one of these was a world; they're still in me.

I've written a novel, The Gin Closet, and a collection of essays, The Empathy Exams. My work has appeared or will appear in places like Harper's, Oxford American, A Public Space, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Believer. I'm a columnist for the New York Times Book Review, and I'm currently finishing a doctoral dissertation at Yale about addiction narratives. I live in Brooklyn, above a smoke shop.


Jenny Zhang is a poet, writer, and performer living in New York. She’s the author of the poetry collection Dear Jenny, We Are All Find.