Interview with Mica Millar

Mica Millar has honed a distinctive talent for capturing hearts and minds with her powerful voice and vulnerably honest songwriting. To date, Mica has released three singles, fiercely championed by fans, collaborators and the industry alike.

Her forthcoming debut album – “Heaven Knows” (Out June 2022) is self-written, arranged and produced drawing inspiration from a plethora of vintage soundscapes; soul, blues, gospel and jazz with respectful nods paid to girl groups of the 60’s and 70’s, giving her songs a timelessness quality that is both reassuringly familiar yet distinctively hers.

What inspires your writing? When you create music, what is your personal purpose or goal?

Writing for me is about processing emotions and getting into a meditative/flow state. I’m never really writing a song for the purpose of finishing it or sharing it in the initial stages but once something’s written, if I find it gets stuck in my head or it evokes a strong emotional response to me, that starts the process of producing something more complete for other people to listen to.

What draws you to your preferred genre?

I have always loved soul music. It’s emotive and often uplifting. I connect with it at a deep level that is hard to explain. I think with soul music is about expressing and capturing a feeling and mood in a way that for me is different from other genres.

What does your music say about you?

I think my music is very open and honest – it is inherent in my creative process.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your current releases?

Creating music during Covid lockdowns was particularly challenging, having to adapt to remote recording sessions for example. But I feel this ultimately made me a much better and more experienced producer as I was able to collaborate with lots of musicians from across the UK and US which wouldn’t necessarily have been possible under other circumstances.

Was anyone else involved in writing, recording, or producing the songs?

In the initial stages, Lewis Hopkins who engineered a large amount of the album was heavily involved in helping me choose a studio and the musicians for the initial recording stages. I’m so grateful to him for all the time and love he put into the record and mentoring me in sonics and live sound recording.

The album is entirely self-written, I engineered all the vocals, strings, harp, some guitar. Andrew Thomas supported Lewis in the first recording sessions as an assistant engineer. Vince Chiarito engineered some of the drum and piano/organ recordings at Hive Mind Studios in New York (Black Puma’s, Corinne Bailey-Rae) and of course Brian Malouf (Michael Jackonson, Stevie Wonder), mixed the record and it was mastered by Geoff Peshe (Tina Turner, Adele, Ed Sheeran) at Abbey Road Studios, London.

If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?

Inequality.

If we were to look at the artists you are listening to, who would be on your playlist?

You would find mostly classic Soul, Funk, Jazz and Blues records on my playlists but I’m also in love with a track by Pip Millet called ‘Ava’ at the moment. She’s also from Manchester. H.E.R, Little Simz and Temz are all artists that I think are making really amazing music at the moment too.

What are your musical plans for the next 12 months or so?

Releasing my album and we are currently planning a tour in September which I hope to be announcing soon!