Millaze, a piano dreamhop artist, released her latest album, “Front Matter,” on March 18th. The album release show takes place at 22:45 on March 26 in The Bishop Bar.
“Front Matter”, the third album in a deconstructed book series, has 13 songs named after different pieces of the subject matter or pages before the main text of a book. While her latest album was nautically inspired, Front Matter is factory inspired. The two previous albums were “Carnegie Stacks”, which outlines the experience of going into a library, and “A Note on the Author”, which describes what it would be like to open a book and read the note in the author section.
“This whole concept just comes out of my love of libraries and books and reading and the tangible writing,” Millaze said.
She said she loves looking for at least one song on an album that seems to stop time. She is influenced by the idea that people are attracted to a dark place with beautiful grief, she said.
Millaze said she’s excited about this album because it’s her first with a complete band sound instead of just beats. This album is also in the industrial rock genre that provides sounds from factories. Since she grew up around wood shops and carpentry, it is nostalgic for her to make these sounds.
Millaze began funding Music Industry Connected, a music consulting firm, in 2013. MIC, an international company, offers internship courses and experiments with music careers. The company helps artists with their music careers by offering a manual on how to complete the business side of a music career.
“I was lucky that I grew up in a household where it was so acceptable to go for something strange and think creatively and believe in music and art,” Millaze said. “I will keep bringing it to other people who do not come from that kind of background.”
Millaze said she uses music in her sublimation of emotions for art. Music makes Millaze feel grounded, she said, and is a survival mechanism for her through her dissociation due to PTSD.
In the album’s intro and outro songs, “Half-Title Page” and “For Little Girl who knows why or should”, Millaze included her experimental beatmaking and samples of sounds. She said she made it feel as if the listener is in a factory or a wood shop, but with an ethereal feeling.
Spencer Sherman, who prefers to be known as his musical alias, Spence Cat Bailey, is an alt-pop artist. He said Millaze introduced himself to him at a performance of him in 2018 and he has been helping her find performance opportunities since then.
Spence Cat Bailey said his first impression of Millaze was that she was a powerful and confident self. He said she is good at balancing a modern sound while sticking to her personal musical inclinations.
“She walks on a nice tight rope of good balance between being strong but also a very warm person,” said Spence Cat Bailey.
Hunter Nico McKenzie, founder of Handmade Audio, met Millaze during an open microphone night at the Blockhouse Bar years ago. He will be the supporting guitarist at her album release show.
McKenzie has worked as a sound consultant on one of Millaze’s records and as a mixer on one of her songs. They have been collaborating on music ideas for years, and McKenzie said he is grateful that Millaze changed the way he thought about the music industry by helping him learn to market his music.
“If people enjoy storytelling, I think they’ll enjoy the show,” McKenzie said.
The doors open at 22.00 and admission costs $ 8. Participants must be 21 years of age or older and vaccinated against COVID-19. Costa Rica and Bloomington fusion band, Matixando, will also perform.