The Los Angeles-based pop singer's new EP plunges into her psyche with quiet desperation, producing some of her most vulnerable music yet.
In a country where more than half of Americans believe in a Christian God, Miya Folick was raised as a Buddhist. Her belief in the spiritual power of community and mutual support—rather than an individual responsibility to rid oneself of sins—echoed across much of her anthemic debut album Premonitions. On its opener, “Thingamajig,” Folick offered herself up as an apologetic vessel, placing her haunting melodies on a foundation of shared suffering and forgiveness. “I can sing an apology for somebody else, because I’m sorry that I’m a human and so are you,” she said in an interview at the time, willing not to absolve sin but refract it.
“Oh God,” the opening track on 2007, Folick’s first collection of music in four years, offers a less assured and more insular take on faith. “Who is God? I’ve never had God,” she sings with both doubt and determination, her voice rich and layered atop a shimmering production. Folick modulates her vocals with precision—she falters, wavers, and quietly screams. It’s a chorus far removed from the composed confidence she once displayed in earlier material. And though she tempers the outsized eccentricity of Premonitions for 2007, what emerges is some of Folick’s most vulnerable music to date: despondent, emotionally frank, and brimming with intimate self-reflection.
Each song on 2007 illustrates a type of yearning that feels eternal, whether it be for the love of a partner, the comfort of a parent, or the safety of the past. On the title track, Folick wishes to retain the innocence she once had when she was on the cusp of young adulthood. “I’ve never gotten used to having tits and ass/I’ve never gotten used to living alone,” she despairs, her voice tumbling along a dusty rock groove. The lyrics aren’t inventive, but genuine emotion still shines through Folick’s full-bodied, classically trained voice, and her angelic falsetto is baked with a touch of desperation in the chorus: “I wanna smile real big/I wanna fucking live.”
Where Premonitions took aim at larger systemic inequality, turning the self outward in service of the whole, Folick’s goal here is to be directly introspective and personal. A messy acoustic guitar line grounds her in the regretful “Nothing to See,” as she castigates herself for losing her sense of personhood in a relationship. Amid a crescendo of drums and synths, she seeks a secure sense of self, supported by distant wails and ethereal lyrics. The lavish instrumental and vocal ornamentation ends abruptly in the last few seconds, as if Folick knows that it’s not always possible to find complete clarity in matters of the soul. 2007 tends to favor these lonesome and occasionally isolating modes of thought: Piano lines loop into a dreamy state of incompletion, lone guitar licks call out without a response, and chanted vocals reach the point of hyperventilation, as heard on “Bad Thing.”
This internal back-and-forth—answering questions with more questions—can be frustrating for anyone with a litany of anxieties, but Folick characterizes it as a reliable and occasionally welcome presence. It’s most evident on the EP’s poppiest track, “Cartoon Clouds,” which reveals Folick at her most inquisitive self. “Look out of the window all the clouds are cartoons/And the sky is so blue,” she sings lightly over a jaunty synth line. “What’s the point in being gloomy/When there’s so much else to do?” Getting out of the doom and gloom in her mind, however briefly, allows her to recognize that not every turning point in life requires an immediate direction. 2007 recognizes a strength in quiet vulnerability, one that is powerful enough without the backing—or even forgiveness—of others. No question needs a detailed answer; sometimes, just asking can be enough.
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