Miya Folick is ten years and three full LPs into her career – and for her third, 2025’s Erotica Veronica, she’s made an excellent, layered, sapphically-coded pop record. Folick’s sound has encompassed many styles, but in a turn that reminds me of her contemporary Sasami’s pop pivot with Blood on the Silver Screen, Folick has made a more tonally-focused work than ever before, showcasing not only her voice, but how her undeniable musical versatility plays out within a narrower set of bounds. It’s this she’s opted to display on the ensuing tour, bringing the show to Boston with a set firmly focused on the album she’s just crafted – a record still brimming with depth and gorgeous vocal harmonies, which focuses its lens while still connecting to her previous works.
Gathering a sizable crowd to Brighton Music Hall even despite an earlier-than-usual show time, Folick and band have prepped all eleven tracks of the new record live, though there’s notable changes in how they’re performed in person. ‘Alaska’ is, in its native form, one of the most vulnerable pieces on the record – it begins with the imagined discovery that someone dear has departed, only to later establish that it’s just a worry, an ephemeral nightmare; but one that puts to words the kinds of worries we all feel when taking the risk of opening up to another person intimately, in whatever sense of the world. But instead of reaching its climax and fading out like the rendition put to tape, ‘Alaska’ just grows and grows into a true ripper in its closing, somewhat recontextualizing that fear of loss.
What follows is ‘Felicity’ – about the actual word, not a person, Folick points out – especially poppy with its infectious drum beat, invoking Björk with its use of sound, just like ‘Hypergiant’ later on in the set. After ‘Hate Me’ she steps forward to the singular massive speaker that juts out toward the audience further than anything else at BMH, saying how the crowd feels almost far away, even pressed against the barricade as they are. For ‘Hypergiant’ the purpose of the red phone laid on the stage becomes clear, using it as an ersatz microphone with extra distortion and reverb, even sliding it along the frets of her guitar at one point for a song that is decidedly avant-garde in its beautiful, complex arrangement. It’s one of the ways in which the band brings a demonstrable element in person to physicalize how uniquely-crafted the songs are on the record.
Folick is touring with singer-songwriter Olivia Kaplan, who captivated onstage solo earlier in the night – save for a number where Folick joined as a second vocalist. Kaplan returns the favor during Miya’s set, joining for the duo of ‘This Time Around’ and ‘Prism of Light’, and returning for the excellent ‘Love Wants Me Dead’ later on. Between tunings, Folick talks about the many inspirations for Erotica Veronica – including the former song here, which she says is about being in a relationship she knew was bad but took a long time to leave [and who doesn’t have one of those?]. “I use the word ‘bad’ sometimes and I think people think that’s too strong of a word… But I think I reserve the right to use it about myself,” she says, before admitting: a lot of Erotica Veronica is about how “I’m bad at love.”
‘This Time Around’, she elaborates, channels that “Next time I’ll get it right” feeling – the song seems to call back to Give It To Me with how she talks about a deep desire to “get out”. She begins the song still with the telephone cradled between her cheek and shoulder as she plays guitar – the killer line of “Babe, it’s okay, I just feel like I’m on fire” all the more striking as it comes down the tinny low-fi mic in the receiver. But there’s an emotional counterpoint, with Folick saying that ‘Light Through the Linen’ – which closes Erotica Veronica – is “one of my favorites… It just gives me hope, y’know?” Afterwards she talks about her day spent in the Boston area before the show, endorsing the “great birding” in Mt. Auburn Cemetery and remarking how binoculars are a truly special device nowadays, with how they let one look without recording. [Camera complete with giant lens slung around my shoulder, actively aggravating my chronic back pain, I simply cannot understand the appeal.]
‘Fist’ – which in some ways reads like a prequel to ‘Hate Me’ elsewhere on the record – appears approaching the end of the night. It’s one of the best songs from EV, taking on the difficult task of confronting one’s own ugly emotional side, struggling with the prospect of letting that out but also the reality of turning that rage inward. “I punch myself in the face with my own little fist!” is the unlikely refrain, and Folick lets go and screams and jumps as the song reaches its peak.
In a pair of unexpected events, the band opts not only to obviate the traditional encore break, but also to perform a synth-forward rendition of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ going into the final moments of the evening. Folick opts, solo, to perform an unreleased song for the first time live, and follows it with ‘Momma’ from 2023’s ROACH, which on the night is actually as far back as she elects to peer into her own discography. In this stripped-back format, the song genuinely has the cadence of an ages-old folk song, so specific to Folick yet universal in the way it spurs one to think of the individuality and idiosyncrasies of their own parents. In that ROACH-inspired vein, she closes with ‘Shortstop’, which also ended that album. It’s a truly perfect closer, and one that hits home, the proverbial angel and devil on a person’s shoulders, each bound for the same apocryphally-named destination. Whatever it may mean to you, one might also intentionally parse the song in a more generic way – no matter which shoulder you’re listening to… show up at the Miya Folick show.
Photos and words by Collin Heroux
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