Miss Grit

Rejecting the boundaries between rock and electronic music and challenging conventions about love and identity, Miss Grit claims their own space as a half-Korean, non-binary artist. New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Margaret Sohn's stage name reflects the dualities in their music: Sohn's voice is often eerily calm, but the guitars and synths erupting around them tell the other side of the story. Miss Grit uses this contrast expressively, whether tracing the fault lines of relationships on 2019's Talk Talk EP or spinning self-doubt and internalized prejudice into audacious electro-rock anthems on 2021's Impostor EP. With 2023's debut album Follow the Cyborg, which drew from anime, sci-fi, and feminist essays, the conceptual and emotional harmony of Miss Grit's work reached a peak. Growing up in suburban Michigan, Sohn first realized the power of music while listening to the Fiona Apple and Led Zeppelin songs their parents played around the house. Having fallen in love with the guitar, they started playing at age six and picked up cello a few years later; their father, an electrical engineer, encouraged the love of making music Sohn and their sisters shared by purchasing recording equipment and software for them. When Sohn was in middle school, a USB full of songs gifted by their uncle expanded their taste in music to include formative influences such as St. Vincent and LCD Soundsystem. After high school, Sohn headed to New York University as a music tech student. They played in several bands and experimented with designing guitar pedals, but didn't seriously pursue writing their own songs until January 2018, when Sohn spent their winter break creating what would become their debut EP. Taking their project's moniker from a childhood nickname, Sohn recorded at Brooklyn's Virtue and Vice studio -- where they had previously interned -- with a creative team that included drummer Greg Tock and bassist Zoltan Sindhu. Arriving in January 2019, the Talk Talk EP paired deceptively serene melodies with volatile guitars and drew from inspirations like Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Talk Talk earned critical acclaim and in the wake of its release, Miss Grit played dates with Cigarettes After Sex, whose label, Spanish Prayers, issued the single "Running Slow" in April 2019. Talk Talk's success triggered lingering doubts and insecurities rooted in Sohn's experiences as a mixed-race child growing up in an overwhelmingly white area, and they explored those feelings on their next release. Recorded once again at Virtue and Vice with Sindhu and Tock and produced entirely by Sohn, February 2021's Impostor EP reflected Miss Grit's growing confidence in its striking textural and melodic contrasts. Though Impostor was written for and recorded with a full band, Sohn spent much of the COVID-19 global pandemic penning songs on their own. After signing with Mute, Miss Grit made their debut for the label with September 2022's "Like You." The song appeared on Miss Grit's first full-length, February 2023's Follow the Cyborg. Informed by Alex Garland's film Ex Machina, the works of anime director Satoshi Kon, and the writing of Jia Tolentino, the album's tales of artificial intelligence gaining liberation were recorded at Sohn's home studio and featured contributions from Pearla and Warpaint's Stella Mozgawa as well as Tock and Sindhu.
© Heather Phares /TiVo