Interview: Miso Extra on Debut EP Great Taste, Food & Art, and the Misoverse

There's one artist that completely blew us away with her first release ever - Miso Extra, this new peculiar Japanese/English artist residing in London.

"Adventures of Tricky N Duke" was an outstanding listening experience, blending various genres and both her native languages. And what followed was nothing short of a roller-coaster - her debut EP, Great Taste, which she teased with 2 more tracks. All of which received tremendous support from the likes of BBC Radio, KCRW, The FADER, etc.

I had the absolute pleasure to chat with her for our Fox Tales podcast and the things she shared... well, you can hear them for yourselves below (or on your preferred podcast platform here).

I transcribed a few of my favourite parts from the interview below:

[01:00] On the Misoverse

The Misoverse? I touch on this in a lyric, I think it's from "Adventures of Tricky N Duke" - "Welcome to an alternate reality / Open-door kind of policy / Full of peace and musicality". Which, essentially kind of summarizes the Misoverse for me. It's just this alternate world. I'm a perpetual daydreamer, so it's kind of a world which I inhabit as Miso that has no boundaries and it's this very free-flowing, fun-loving place where anyone's really welcome, and creativity is paramount.

[04:07] On the role of food in her life

It's a huge era of study, I believe, in terms of immigrant culture and using food as a way of kinda regaining part of your identity. Especially with my mom being Japanese and coming over to the UK and kind of trying to find ways of sharing her culture and then for her to also be able to reconnect with an element of herself, having some of those flavours of home. And then for me, that helps me tie that to my whole identity. That's kind of my love language, almost. In Japanese culture, food plays a huge part - you watch any Anime and there's never not a scene where they're not eating at some point.

[09:43] On Great Taste EP

Great Taste EP is my self-introduction to the world & mind of Miso. It's this broad, expansive genre & influence. And it's kinda a little bit of a flavour, an amuse-bouche - each song is different from the next. They touch on all those different things that are close to me but also proving I can touch on all those different sounds but still from a similar realm. It's still very much 'me', Miso, the identity is there, the nuances between tracks are identifiable but still different. I can write a serious song, then something a bit more fun

[23:21] On femininity & equality

I think the first thing is always recongnising it. People regognise there's an issue and they are learning to sense it. But until it kind of becomes part of our human identity - like, if we're having to stop ourselves and censor, then it's still a problem. If we don't have to second-guess ourselves when saying things, then we're moving away from it being an issue. I do think we're still very far away from equality but I think people are trying to represent various different cultures and types of people. But only time will tell.