Miss Leading - Album Review: Minor Thing
When reviewing albums by artists you’ve never heard of can be a lottery, sometimes you don’t quite ‘get’ the album, and sometimes you’re like ‘wow’.
Minor Thing by Miss Leading is totally in the ‘wow’ category. The production is charming, with an 80's 8-bit retro aesthetic with wonderful lo-fi beats, blended with state of the art music and recording techniques.
Miss Leading describes herself as a spoken word artist and beat maker, however she can sing too.
The album opens with The Girl Is Gone, setting the tone for the recording. Lyrically the main theme on Minor Thing is, to my ears, a person coming of age knowing herself and being proud of who she is and her heritage.
Miss Leading is currently promoting the second song Satsuma on social media as a teaser for the album - it’s an up tempo number which builds slowly.
Blonde is the third tune, it’s a wonderfully quirky tune with a great lyric, "I wanna be blonde when I grow up, I wanna be blonde with a double d cup", showing Miss Leading has a great sense of self awareness, and wit.
Woke is another cleverly penned lyric laid on a lushly arranged musical bed.
The sounds chosen and overall production values on this album are intriguing, wonderful, charming and fascinating. The drums and percussion sound like samples from the 1970's and 80's drum machines, and or things like my old acetone organ. Quirky and wonderful, especially when overlaid with a creative array of synthetic sounds, some deep bass, and then topped with Miss Leading’s wonderful voice.
She is, by her own definition, more of a poet and spoken word artist, than a singer as such. That said her voice really suits her style and sits a-top the songs incredibly well.
The album is on her Bandcamp page at ‘name your price’. Dear reader, may I politely suggest you make that price quite high; this album is worth it. Top work Miss Leading and team.
About Miss Leading
Since returning to NZ Miss Leading has performed at festivals across the North and South Island and is the founder of the Eastern Sound Collective a network of Wellington musicians who aim to support Asian artists who are underrepresented in western music.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Miss Leading
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