Mimskrogh is the troubadour I’ve been waiting for
Photo courtesy of Henrik Holt
Growing up, songs were the safe place where I could feel everything happening inside. Each time I found just the right song for just the right moment, I felt like both the actor and director of my very own indie coming-of-age film. The stomping kick drum of Wolfmother’s “Vagabond” complemented the freedom and elation of long road trips. Pining over an unrequited crush required the endless loop of plaintive, waltzing acoustic guitar in Sarah Jaffe’s “Before You Go.” “Baby, I’m Yours” by Breakbot and its funky disco throwback energy soundtracked dancing in the kitchen with my best friend in high school and driving my first car.
In my youth, every soundtrack was a true mixtape of different artists, moods, and styles. And because my brain cycled through such a dramatic range of emotions, my soundtrack was a patchwork of disparate moments and vastly different moods. As I grew older, I was awed when a film’s soundtrack hung on one artist. I felt certain I could never be soundtracked by a single artist or a single album. I was too chaotic. My film would be a mixtape forever.
But now I’ve heard Mimskrogh’s debut album Late Bloomer, it might just be the soundtrack to the indie movie of my life. Mimskrogh is the troubadour I’ve been waiting for.
Mimskrogh is the art-pop project of Norwegian producer and performer Emilie Krogh Johannessen. Sonically somewhere between Sylvan Esso and Adult Jazz, lyrically as wistful and searching as Lucy Dacus or Hayley Williams, Mimskrogh is charging out of the gate with the kind of fully realized voice artists spend their whole career trying to find.
Most Top 40 pop songs ruminate on one single feeling for three and a half minutes, but Late Bloomer’s opening track connects multiple, comorbid feelings in the space of a single line: “The modern caress/Let’s care, care less.” Late Bloomer is contemplative. Its understated mastery rewards you for repeat listens. It is not easy narrative. Nor is it instant gratification. It’s an album as tangled and gnarled as life itself, but with the beauty and transcendence only true craft can achieve.
In my teens, I loved the brash, unapologetic cheek of punk rock and CeeLo Green’s “Fuck You,” but as I approach 28, I find less meaningful emotional payoff in that music. Late Bloomer is music for grown-ups. Mimskrogh’s “Hook Jab or Uppercut,” takes aim at some stubborn antagonist with the lyrical maturity of a practiced communicator. Its minimalist production conveys the frustration and simmering rage of female ire. No guitars here. No single, climactic arrival. It’s three minutes quietly holding your feet to the fire you created. Whether I’m the one self-sabotaging (“classic amygdala latency”), or the one begging someone else to accept support (“Might’ve felt it if it wasn’t for the way you’re stuck in your own way”), this song holds space for any experience. Mimskrogh’s greatest strength is her ability to zoom in on one tiny, nuanced feeling and magnify it into something worthy of every lilting beat and pulsing synth. And for someone like me, who often finds myself playing the saboteur and the support system simultaneously, this emotional expansion feels revelatory.
As a musician, I pay my way with silly day jobs. The inside of my car is my haven where lunch breaks include screaming, crying, longing, planning, corresponding, grieving, and falling in love—all in the space of thirty-one minutes. My messy and conflated emotions run into each other. They require soothing and untangling without the luxury of much time to do so. “Rest” is an instrumental respite for every such occasion. Clocking in at just under two minutes, it’s a gently-building wash of vocal harmonies, picked electric guitar, and drums. A vinyl dust effect underpins it all, adding both a sense of warmth and bittersweet nostalgia. Mimskrogh’s vocal loops pour into my ears like a salve, curing every ailment. There are no lyrics, but she communicates everything I need to hear: “I’m here, I see you, it’s going to be ok. Just rest.”
Title track “Late Bloomer” comes halfway through the album and summits with a full, explosive chorus—a fully cathartic release. The drums kick off, and Mimskrogh’s voice soars upwards. I feel the sudden urge to take off at full tilt, speeding up, and up, and up until I simply take off!
And just like that, Mimskrogh pulls me back. “Another Drifter’s Melody” fills me with the kind of existential dread that only hits after the fantasy of being a teenage prodigy has long since faded. Only now that I’ve lived long enough, survived enough detours and ego deaths and renegotiations can I find solace here. Many of life’s firsts are behind me. No longer do the movie moments of my life consist of aching romance and adventure. Now, I synch songs to my commute.
To anyone, whose life trajectory hasn’t resulted in the glorious, heroic arrival of “success,” Mimskrogh extends an invitation to join her tribe of wanderers and searchers.
Late Bloomer soundtracks the turbulent, beautiful chaos of feeling simultaneously frozen and like you’re going backward while the whole world speeds up. It is an album so immediately listenable and lyrically complex that it can represent the whole of my life, no longer a patchwork. Here, finally, is the gift of 40 minutes to be present with my full inner world.