Grammy-nominated artist Mild Minds has unveiled a full 5-track EP, tying a common thread between new music from 2022 and previously released singles. Released via ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective on September 21st, 2022, the IT WON’T DO EP signifies the end of one chapter for Mild Minds as he prepares a new era of music in the time ahead.
Going through the latest EP in a track-by-track, Benjamin David AKA Mild Minds shares his personal take on the EP for EARMILK.
The latest track and namesake of the EP “IT WON’T DO” is an upbeat, fervent track that injects a dose of energy into Mild Mind’s diverse sound palette that can span the spectrum of downtempo, ambient, electronica, and melancholy electronic. The uplifting new addition to his catalog is peppered with high energy arpeggios and dancefloor ready percussion.
IT WON’T DO:
“After making a lot more serious, darker music these past two years I started to feel like I really wanted to drop something on the more uplifting and cheerful side of things; a whole side of this project that has been neglected for a while. Meanwhile, the tempo and mood of songs on my personal playlists had also been creeping up these last 6 months, so it felt liberating and like a nice change of pace to put something so carefree and fun out there.”
Second on the EP, “DEVOTION” incorporates organic instrumentals across a bright, yet brooding atmospheric undertone, dynamic synthwork is the foundation of the expertly harmonized track. Boasting shimmering vocal highlights across its duration, “DEVOTION” delivers a reflective, multifaceted exemplification of Mild Minds’ production proficiencies.
DEVOTION:
“I wrote this track while in Melbourne while winter was looming. It is about two people converging then diverging, the secrets that we hold from each other and the covert effects they slowly have on our relationships.”
Juxtaposing fluttering synth melodies with fleeting vocals, “MACHINE” is an electronic creation brimming with human emotion.
MACHINE:
“With the new set of singles upcoming, I wanted to sway between both machine and human influences, as represented by vocal tracks that explore intimate human emotion, and dance records that are inspired by machines and artificial intelligence. The choice to do this in a ‘singles format’ was to allow for a back and forth; simultaneously exploring two directions but also thematically exploring our merger with technology. MACHINE was the only song I made during hotel quarantine while entering Australia late 2020. It was made almost solely on a prophet 5 synth. I was exploring topics of AI and robotics at the time and imagined a future where these two technologies would combine and be capable of building structures by themselves.”
Staying true to the track title, “HAUNTED” is a soul-stirring soundscape that sees Mild Minds tap into his trademark blend of driving synths and captivating vocals.
HAUNTED:
“I think we had all spent a part of 2020 contemplating a lot about our own lives, while feeling a general sense of darkness looming over whether we’d be losing loved ones, or not. For a lot of us we did. The heaviness of it all led me to explore more melancholic themes in my music. I found myself breaking down all of the shades that might be associated with melancholy; exploring death, loss, rebirth, and the associated beauty. This ultimately led me to wanting to use flowers on the artwork, being something that both dies and blooms again each year. At the same time I was re-learning piano, or even in a way properly learning piano. It was such a rush to be feeling the music through touch and finding an ability to speak through it. I found myself playing a set of similar chords over and over through the first half of the year; verses, choruses, outros. Slowly but surely, this song formed from a combination of those. This was immediately one of my favorite tracks I’ve ever written.”
Closing out the 5-track EP, “NO SKIN” is a collaboration with acclaimed British electronic producer Frameworks. The track embodies a spirit of forward motion, fusing cinematic synths and simmering drum samples, it layers his striking falsetto over organic production.
NO SKIN:
“Lyrically, NO SKIN is about always being on the run and having no skin in the game. I knew a person in my life that I met who always moved from town to town, from one friend group to another, constantly making mistakes and then up and leaving with no ties to her old self. Kind of like ‘nobody can hurt you’, because you’re always leaving them; there’s something tender and sad about that”
The IT WON’T DO EP is a capstone of Mild Mind’s works since the release of his 2020 album, MOOD. Drawing comparisons to the likes of Bonobo, Maribou State, Caribou and Four Tet, Mild Minds is the brainchild of Benjamin David. The Grammy-nominated vocalist and producer assembles electronic music agnostic of genre, striking a delicate balance between dancefloor-ready and downtempo moods. Defining his music as an exploration between the intersection of humanity and technology, his music draws inspiration from human movement, patterns, and artificial intelligence.
Dynamically demonstrating diversity across his signature sound, innovation is an innate aptitude boasted by the Mild Minds project, the IT WON’T DO EP sets the stage for a new venture for the burgeoning artist in the time ahead.
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