TRACK REVIEW: Pip Millett - Downright

TRACK REVIEW:

Pip Millett

Downright

9.5/10

The track, Downright, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p23E0O3WKJs

ORIGIN:

Manchester, U.K.

GENRES:

R&B/Soul/Trip-Hop

RELEASE DATE:

5th May, 2022

__________

THIS review…

PHOTO CREDIT: Hayleigh Longman

concerns an artist who is a major young talent. Pip Millett is someone I have known about for a while - and the music she is releasing now is phenomenal. An artist who is going to go major and last fir years, Millett plays The Great Escape on 13th; she is playing in Amsterdam tomorrow. I am going to come to her latest song, Downright, in a minute. Before that, I want to look back at a couple of older interviews, to provide an introduction to Pip Millett, and to show where she has come from musically. Her Motion Sick E.P. of last year was phenomenal. It helped bring her music to a wider audience, and established her as an amazing and original artist. I will start with the Music Week. The Manchester-born artist was calling for more recognition of Black talent:

“The 22-year-old neo-soul singer is calling Music Week from her recently redecorated childhood bedroom, having relocated back to Manchester from London. The move home has left her in a state of reflection, and with the growing power of the Black Lives Matter movement, she’s been thinking back to her own experiences of racism growing up in the “very white area” of Stockport. Her mum is from the Wirral while her dad, who passed away a few years ago, was from Jamaica.

“It’s strange to think back to times when I felt uncomfortable and didn’t really know why,” she says. “It’s weird but, being mixed race, I guess I don’t feel the full brunt of it. I want to be able to be even louder than maybe some black people might feel like they can be, because we’re rocking the boat right now.”

Through frequent posting on social media Millett is doing just that, but now she’s calling for real change. While she hasn’t felt discrimination in the industry so far, the issue does throw up several questions. “I don’t want to feel too white for a black audience or too black for a white audience,” she says. “I’m kind of in-between.”

While such feelings could be disheartening for a young artist, Millett is focused on the bigger picture, calling for more black talent to be celebrated. “There’s a lot of white people doing soul and R&B that get pushed a lot, but there definitely needs to be more of a push for those that are black, as it’s where this music actually came from,” she says. “There needs to be more money put into black artists.”

One of Millett’s early champions was Jorja Smith, who added her debut track Make Me Cry to her Spotify playlist. It now has more than seven million streams. “It feels really nice to have a young mixed-race girl supporting another young mixed-race girl,” she says.

In 2019, Millett released her debut Do Well EP and, into the early storm of lockdown, came follow-up Lost In June. Its uplifting sound has been something of a remedy to her fans, but Millett is as humble as can be. “I’m very grateful,” she smiles. “But it may have got even more attention because people were on their phones bored to shit!”

The project spawned from a university assignment to create a concept album (“My concept is my life, what else is there?”) and so featured narration from her family about their lives. The result is a masterful blend of soulful ballads and tantalising R&B, a beautifully candid statement on youth, family and love. It’s a lush, stylish peek into Millett’s musical life, which began as a solitary project with her bass guitar aged 13. Brought up on Joni Mitchell, Bobby Womack and Lauryn Hill CDs in her parents’ car, she says her family has influenced her sound exponentially.

“My mum would have my auntie and uncle round and get me to do the music,” she remembers. “She’d tell me certain things to put on and then I’d click on the YouTube links and I found more of my style that way. Friday night would be the parents drinking and me just playing tunes from a desktop computer! [Laughs]”

Millett’s way with raw emotion has helped sell out her two headline gigs so far. “They sang along to all the songs and I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ That was cool, a real emotional point,” she says.

With touring on ice for now, Millett is dreaming about the future and working on new music. “There’s a lot to think about, which means there’s a lot to write about,” she says. “I’m figuring out how I’m feeling and where I want to be after this...”.

This interview from NOTION is one that interested me, as it concerns a few of Pip Millet’s 'firsts’. It is especially interesting realising when she decided that she wanted to become an artist:

“First song you ever made?

Technically it would’ve been a song I wrote when I was super young and it was likely pretty awful.

First song you released officially?

“Make Me Cry”.

First CD or record you owned?

I’m too young for that! I remember cd’s being given as gifts but I had an iPod nano in primary school and before that an MP3 player with Paolo Nutini and Kings of Leon on it.

First time you realised you wanted to be an artist?

From a young age, I loved the idea of it but felt like it was out of my reach. I was super shy and everyone told me it was a really difficult career path but I went for it anyway and I guess probably over the past few years it’s gradually become more real.

First gig and first festival you went to? And the first festival you performed at?

First gig was either Rihanna or Paolo Nutini – both a great first gig. First festival I went to was either Camp Bestival or Solfest when I was about 11/12 – both were the same year. The first festival I performed at was Manchester International this year for myself – however, I did perform at Boardmasters a few years ago with Franc Moody”.

Before getting to the review, there are a few more interviews I want to source. This one from PAUSE Her is more recent. There is one I will get to that is a bit older. PAUSE Her discussed her songwriting process and when her love of music began:

“Hey Pip, welcome back to PAUSE. I hear you’re gearing up for yet another release. Without giving away too much, what can we expect?

Hey! Yes I’ve got quite a few songs and I’m putting an album together which is pretty exciting! I’ve got songs with producers I’ve worked with a lot before as well as some newbies… it’s going to be really good. There’s a few different vibes.

Looking at your last project, it was a declaration of love to yourself. What role does music play in grounding you to inner peace and mental clarity in such an unsteady world?

My music helps me get things out and process things which is really helpful. Listening to other peoples music can help me relax, or can be a nice distraction to the weird times we live in. I’ve been listening to my Motion Sick EP recently, it’s nice to hear myself getting those feelings out of my head.

Would you be so kind in sharing your process of making a song?

It varies to be honest, but my favourite songs have usually started at home on guitar and then been taken to a producer.

As you often delve into your past through lyricism, tell us about how your love of music began.

I always loved listening to music. Who doesn’t? I just remember going on car journeys so that I could listen to a CD on the way to wherever my mum was going.

You received guitar lessons as a present from your mother. Was that a mother’s instinct or premonition? What was it about the guitar?

I’d asked for a bass guitar one year and I think the next year it made sense to then get lessons so it was a natural step up I think”.

I want to go back to the beginning, as it were. CLASH chatted with Pip Millett last year. They spotlighted a wonderful artist on the rise. Among other things, she mentioned some artists who were inspiring and moving her:

“I mean, I’ve never heard anyone refer to their music as gravy so that’s a first! I would love to go back to the beginning with you! Talk me through your upbringing and your introduction to music from a younger age?

My introduction to music was from my parents and siblings. There was always music playing in the car and around the house, I remember getting my first MP3 player and eventually moved up to an iPod Nano, this was in Primary school! I had artists like Kings Of Leon, and Bob Marley on it, but I loved it! It was a relatively little introduction, but a large part of my memory was me waking up, walking downstairs in the morning, and seeing my brother dancing around to the music channel in his dressing gown to Beyoncé and Sean Paul! (laughs)

That is such a big mood! (laughs) What about in regard to when you started singing?

I was really shy, I started singing a bit when I was around 13 years old, but before that I didn’t really sing unless it was along to something. Something changed, I started playing bass guitar which bought me out my shell a little bit and then I moved to actual guitar, and it was just a gradual process from there really.

Are there any artists that have helped shape your sound recently?

I’ve been listening to Nas’ ‘King’s Disease’ album a lot, I love it! I think that’s probably come through somewhere. Other than that, I discover a lot of stuff through Spotify. I listen to a lot of Sabrina Claudio and Snoh Aalegra – I always listen to Snoh Aalegra, I’m obsessed with her to be honest! (laughs) She is an older female but she’s killing it! She makes me feel less pressured because sometimes – I mean, maybe I’ve given this to myself – it’s now or never, but in fact I’m looking at all these artists that are in there 30’s and I’m 23! I can calm down a bit”.

I will come to the new track soon. Before that, I will go back to the CLASH interview. They asked Millett about the Motion Sick E.P. (2021). It is a magnificent E.P. that you need to check out. If you have not followed and investigated the work of Pip Millett, then do so now:

“Sonically, this EP has a more old-school feel. Was this something you wanted to encapsulate throughout?

It was definitely something I wanted to do! We had ‘Hard Life’ recorded and written for years and that had an older feel to it, and I wanted to keep that throughout the whole project. Most of the songs apart from one do use samples, I wanted to keep that old, warm, and crackly feeling. We finished all the songs and sent them across to Josh Crocker, a producer in Leeds, that put his own little spin on them. It was cool to hear his input!

This project differs a lot in comparison to ‘Lost In June’. Do you think you’ve grown a lot since then?

I’m never sure if its growth or if it’s just a new phase! I still listen back to some of those songs and wish I could re-write some of them. This EP does sound so different to ‘Lost In June’ and I don’t think they could be compared in any way. I know some people say, “Oh, you’ve grown so much, you sound so much better” and I’m thinking, is this meant to be a compliment? (laughs) For me personally, they are two very different projects and its good to be able to go from zone to zone. It’s a new part of my music! The next project will be a new chapter!

You said earlier that you were quite worried about dropping ‘Deeper Dark’ because you did it on our own. Are you more comfortable now with being as vulnerable in your songs?

It's always going to be a little bit scary because you just never know what people are going to say about it! Even when people are being nice to you, they can say some shadey things. I think people think it’s a compliment to say things like “Oh, I like this one but this one is way better” and I’m thinking, I’ve put so much work into both, so shush! (laughs)

I wasn’t as nervous this time to release the project because I was so desperate to have it out and the nerves had gone, but when you release the first single from any project it can be a bit scary! Each time I go to release, my audience has grown a little bit more! When I dropped ‘Make Me Cry’, I didn’t know who was going to listen to that, I didn’t have a following back then!

What’s your favourite track from the EP and why?

I don’t have a favourite favourite, but my favourites are ‘Running’ and ‘Braid It Back’. With ‘Running’, the journey to make it was it was really gradual, I could go back to it with ease, and it felt naturally formed, it didn’t feel like an effort or a chore! ‘Braid It Back’ is so weird, there isn’t really a chorus, and it feels cooky from most songs, but I like that it is its own thing, it’s warm and soulful”.

I love the KC Locke-directed video for Downright. It is the perfect accompaniment to the song. The introduction is beautiful! Rolling percussion and soulful, arresting guitars, there is a combination of R&B and Trip-Hop in the first moments. It is a wonderful introduction that gets you invested in the song right away. The song is an exploration of her mental-health and struggles. It is also about conflict within a relationship. An honest and open song, the video sees Millett washing her skin and looking in the mirror. It is almost cinematic in its beauty! The lyrics are Millett at her finest: “I was so alone, I was, I was in a sea of it/I wasn't sailin' through, I guess we both should beg/But it's okay now 'cause I'm with you/And I'm okay now/Do you plan on stayin' longer?” There is so much character, emotion and nuance in Millett’s voice. She is such a passionate, soulful and mesmeric singer. Able to bring so much from her lyrics, you immerse yourself in her world. The pre-chorus is the heroine looking for answers and resolution: “I want it to be better/Can't we both be separate pieces?/We can share the same sea/Settin' up on different beaches”. The video sees Millett lying on the floor with another woman, who looks quite blank. It is a tender but striking moment when you wonder what has happened; what has provoked and influenced the song. Millett is seen, through the song, looking out to the water and trying to find some solace. The chorus is the most stirring and memorable part of the song: “I know you still need me when I'm down/But down is just downright/Get the fuck out of my head/And I know you still need me when I'm down/But down is just downright/Sleepin' when I don't feel all right, all right”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Huynh

One of the great modern voices, Pip Millett is someone who can carry you away in her songs. Even though it is quite personal and has this real relevance to her, every listen is made to feel something and reflect when listening to a song like Downright. The way she phrases these words in the pre-chorus adds so much more weight and depth to a song that is already so striking: “When I don't/When I don't, all-all-all, all right/When I don't/All right”. I really love the composition. That rifling percussion remains. It is almost like nerves racing and a heartbeat going really fast. Although it projects some anxiety, there is this other aspect. The beat adds to the momentum and it has this sort of soothing quality too – whether that was intended or not. I do really admire the layers and all the separate elements of Downright. A song that I keep exploring and really admire.

I love the imagery in the video and what is conveyed. Millett is a natural actor, and you feel for in every moment! The second verse is her at her most bare-naked: “What's happening? You can't be wrong/Yet we're sitting here reluctantly in our broken home/You made the call, I picked it up/That doesn't mean I didn't hurt”. Showing arguments and Millett looking strained and upset, you will come back to the video time and time again. The song itself holds enormous power! I have listened to it a few times, and I get something new each time. Millett’s voice is filled with greys, blacks, and darker hues when it comes to the emotional content. She has this honeyed and silky voice that adds to that spectrum; so many different contours and shades that make the song one that will stay in the head. Downright is one of the best songs of this year! I wonder whether Pip Millett will follow it with an E.P. or album. There are a lot of eyes on her, and rightly so! The Manchester-born artist is primed for some very great things. She is without doubt…