Twenty-four
year old Mileece spent her childhood surrounded by some
of the biggest stars of the late seventies and early
eighties, including the Sex Pistols and Ian Dury, who
recorded at her parents’ studio, Free Range, located
in the heart of London’s Covent Garden. The couple
also ran the first music video and film company, Rockflicks,
who were responsible for videos for Kate Bush (Wuthering
Heights), Queen (We Will Rock You) and
Lene Lovich (Lucky Number, in which Mileece,
then only six months old, debuted in front of the camera).
After her parents separated, she lived in a variety
of places, including Los Angeles, New York and rural
France. Back in London, she completed a BA in Sonic
Arts and sound engineering, before emigrating to Canada
where she currently lives.
Formations, Mileece’s first album, was
inspired by formations in nature, changing colours,
altered lights and intricate structures. The five tracks
presented here are built around micro-tonal constructions,
appearing singularly static but actually evolving constantly.
Using computers as her main source of instrumentation,
she relies on generative computer languages, a principle
providing a great deal of interactivity between the
musician and its machines, allowing “for structures
to generate autonomously, the same as a plant or any
living thing would” as she describes, to transcend
her creativity. Far from the mechanmical electronic
championed by most of her contemporaries, Mileece’s
compositions are beautiful pieces of organic sonic construction,
randomly growing, morphing and fading, creating a feeling
of complete serenity all the way through. Nothing seems
entirely real in this series of compositions, typically
reminiscent of wind chimes brought to life by a gentle
summer afternoon breeze, but the musical dexterity of
Mileece carries this work very cleverly. Whirlwind of
apparently isolated notes suddenly congregate to form
fragile crystal-like shapes before breaking apart and
reforming later on. Due to the nature of the compositions,
there is very little space for melodies and traditional
musical elements. Instead, Mileece deploys complex and
delicate structures to create airy, spiritual, soundscapes.
Arranging beautiful sonic constructions, relying on
nothing else but the interactivity between her machines
and her imagination, Mileece produces with Formations
a stunning first album. Organic and highly textural,
this album is a marvellous surprise.
4/5
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