Miso Extra crafts vibrant textures with pop intent on MSG

His mix of EQ’d guitars so warped they classify as heavy-lifting machinery, and pop melodies so earwormy you’d expect Max Martin to be behind the audio curtain like the Wizard of Oz; and Miso Extra taps into the style with a sweet tooth. The MSG EP is 13 minutes of creation and indelible joy, a fact that translates with pellucidity. Beyond her ear for controlled chaos in the production, it is the innate talent displayed in her superb melody-craft that elevates this beyond all her previous output and into a seizable spotlight.

The sonic palette is relatively one note, but this is an example of music’s splendid subjectivity; the weaknesses of some releases are the strengths of others, being one note on an EP can serve to reinforce your message in a short span of time – and it is a sumptuous and impactful one note at that. Squelching guitars and synth layers with laid back rhythms and ear candy harmonies adorn every track and bolster each’s slight variations. It doesn’t overstay its welcome and leaves in brief like a chance encounter at the supermarket.

The power of MSG is in its wake, as I found myself humming its hooks with a nostalgia relegated to fond childhood memories long after the 13 minutes and change had finished. Describing her sound on this project as “umami for the ears,” the unplaceable decadence of the short 5 tracks gains body and context. It is a wholesome car crash of genre and culture fusion where everyone gets up and has a big laugh at the end. It is music on Barbieland physics, suffocating the very real stakes of racism and xenophobia fought through for this act of joy.

MSG, and Miso Extra as an artist for that matter, is a breakthrough for indie pop in a landscape dominated by hellish post-hyperpop, indie rock fusions, and impending doom. A memory, a fond callback, or a resurgence is necessary when the state of a genre calls attention to itself. Sometimes, that particular vein struck and abandoned by Jai Paul a decade ago needs its time in the sun. Miso Extra can be the sun for now.