Mitski
Puberty 2

“One morning this sadness will fossilize”

A pure girl, dressed in white, crosses a field in the open countryside, discovering her inner world still hidden behind adolescent paranoia and fears. This is how Mitski Miyawaki, a Japanese-American singer-songwriter, presents herself on the cover of her second official album "Puberty 2".

This album is a journey, the departure from adolescent troubles, before the final transition to adulthood (both personal and artistic). The walk in the field, this second puberty, will lead the girl to look inside herself and overcome some fears, or rather, let’s say it will lead her to accept them. Because when you grow up, you understand that fear is a feeling like any other and is part of human nature, and thus you tend to live with it rather than wanting to overcome it at all costs.

And so, Mitski's musical journey starts confidently and convincingly with "Happy" and its syncopated rhythm, like the heartbeat in joyful excitement ("Happy came to visit me//He bought cookies on the way"), and the saxophones that come in after the choruses. And, if one thought the compactness of the first track was a fluke, the next two tracks make it clear that the brevity of the tracks is one of Mitski's trademarks (the track lengths will be further reduced in the subsequent "Be the Cowboy").

The central part of the album is made up of the three best tracks of the record, representing the three predominant moods: "Fireworks" with its voice/guitar (used as the main support and percussion)/keyboards brings us into a dreamlike and dreamy dimension, typical of the Mitski world. Meanwhile, "Your Best American Girl" is the most electric and angry side of the singer-songwriter, where through anger she overcomes the difficulty of feeling divided between two worlds (West and East, Japan and the USA). In the end, one cannot erase the past, which is what has made us who we are today, and anger and inadequacy slowly give way to acceptance ("Your mother wouldn’t approve//of how my mother raised me // but I do, I finally do"). "I Bet on Losing Dogs," on the other hand, represents the more depressive vein of the singer-songwriter, who wants another "losing dog" to be by her side and share everything, even her sadness ("I bet on losing dogs// I always want you when I am finally fine// how you’d be over me looking in my eyes// when I cum// someone to watch me die").

The final part of the album alternates electric jolts ("My Body’s Made of Crushed Little Stars") with slow and dark tracks ("Crack Baby" is a masterpiece of dark sweetness or sweet darkness, if you will).

Mitski has crossed the field of her adolescent troubles; she made it! Now she finds herself as a woman who knows she's not perfect, but deep down also knows that it's okay like this and that perfection doesn’t exist.

In fact, this album isn’t perfect, but it is written and arranged in a sublime manner (and tends towards a nineties style) and is the result of a collaboration between her and Patrick Hyland (except for the writing, which is solely Mitski's). The musical and lyrical quality is very high, and with this album, Mitski prepares to make the leap towards the final maturity of "Be the Cowboy".