Still Water, the debut full-length album of Cincinnati-based producer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Bailey Miller out later this year on Whited Sepulchre Records, has been described as relying on the tension of the uncanny. A tension, that is, “between recognition and its absence,” as though the record was powered by the frictional forces generated when the familiar and the unknown are presented side by side. The effect calls for a careful hand, Miller layering violin, banjo, harp and autoharp, synths and drum machine with precision, crafting a sound best described as translucent. Not too clear, not too fogged, any ethereality countered by directness, yet nothing allowed to be too grounded for long. Not reality then, nor dream neither, but rather both presented together. Opposites superimposed.
The record comes from a lived history. A gradual understanding that words are never enough. Career changes, failed attempts at grad school, SSRIs then no SSRIs. Different homes, different communities, different years. A “spiritual crisis” which led to a silent retreat, from which Miller emerged to find “any word she uttered seemed to fall short” and with a new understanding of music. “Every song came from a place of great surrender,” she says. Giving oneself up to whatever exists beyond the surface of things, and thus working within a space which feels both removed from reality and, paradoxically, somehow like reality distilled.
You might think of lead single ‘Parallel Place’ as an introduction to this space. The drifting synths and driving beat evoking the hauntological branch of UK dubstep, Miller’s vocals at once wispy and plainspoken, their soft and seemingly abstract style hiding blunt questions, the tone never too far from flesh and blood. “This is a parallel place,” she sings, “the spiral of time, a line on the face / or was it just a way to get to first base?”
Cover photo by Vy Pham