Miami-born singer, songwriter, and producer Miranda del Sol has released her debut EP, when you were asleep (vol. i).
Alongside the release of the lead single, “Keep it to yourself,” the EP is a gorgeous mix of glitzy alt-pop, dark edges, Miranda’s sweet bilingual vocals, and four-on-the-floor dance beats.
According to Miranda herself, every song on the EP is “a question and every question, a thread being tugged at.”
Confidently DIY, the album was recorded in Brooklyn, the EP is proof of the heights bedroom pop can go to, and how slick its production really can be.
Miranda del Sol took the time to chat about the making of the EP to celebrate its release.
You switch between Spanish and English in your music—can you tell me what that means to you and how it shapes your work?
I grew up in Miami speaking Spanish at home, so my brain has always worked in Spanglish, but I didn’t really start putting Spanish in my songs until I moved to New York though.
I think I was just missing home and realizing how much my identity shaped my art.
There’s also just so much that can get lost in translation–so I try not to translate my feelings when I’m writing, and go with whichever language they come up in first.
You’re very skilled at blending multiple different genre influences–what do you find each genre brings to your music?
Thank you! I would flip through so many genres in the car with my parents. I think because of that, I don’t really think in terms of genre, I just like what I like.
Every influence has opened me up to new possibilities, new textures, new ways of approaching music-making. And they make their way into my sound in unexpected ways, whether it’s in the way I’m stacking my vocals or processing a guitar.
A lot of the time, I don’t even realize how random certain combinations of vibes might seem to other people until I take a step back. They’re not random [to me] though; they’re what makes my music feel like it’s really coming from me.
The track “keep it to yourself” is much darker than “so in looove,” what was your influence there?
If “so in looove” is about realizing you’re spiraling out, “keep it to yourself” is the aftermath.
Up until that point in the EP, I had been writing from a place of feeling underestimated and weak. I wanted “keep it to yourself” to feel jarring, to expose parts of myself I usually keep tucked away.
I wanted to lean into duality, like, I can be soft, but I can be scary as well. I think we all can be.
All my favorite pop is a little dark, too, like Britney Spears’s Blackout era or Timbaland’s Shock Value. I’m drawn to that tension, I guess.
You directed the music video for “keep it to yourself”–what was that experience like?
For “so in looove,” I did a lot of pre-production and made a very detailed shot-list; “keep it to yourself” was a lot more spur of the moment. I didn’t have a budget, but I knew I had to have something to capture the feeling of “keep it to yourself” visually.
Since I was going home to Miami for the holidays, I asked my sister Alessia if she would be down to shoot something with me. “so in looove” was shot on the beach during the day and I wanted the music videos to feel sequential, so we just picked up where “so in looove” left off and shot at the beach at night with a faded version of the same outfit.
My Pinterest board has been my baby throughout the making of the EP, so I had a lot of references there already–think blurry, spooky, siren-core.
Because the setup was so simple, the performance was going to have to carry the whole video, but my sister knows how to hype me up and get that out of me. We had two hours on the parking meter, my stepdad’s construction light, and a dream. The BTS is going to be crazy!
What made you want to self-direct?
A lot of the artists I looked up to had a very clear visual aesthetic, and it made their music feel so immersive. I always knew I wanted to be that kind of artist too, and a lot of them self-direct.
I’m also a very visual person, and I love movies, so when I’m working on a song, I already have a very vivid vision of the story I’m trying to tell. Directing felt natural, especially for “keep it to yourself,” because I was working with my sister.
We understand each other, we share so many influences–there’s trust built in there.
You worked on “keep it to yourself” with some other writers–what was that like vs writing on your own?
I wanted a song to bridge the sound between “aguardiente” and “so in looove,” so it made sense to bring Nick and Maya together for a session. We started producing the track at Maya’s apartment, and I actually left with zero melody or lyric ideas that night.
Because I loved the beat so much, I was stumped for a while. I ended up writing the melody and lyrics by myself, in my bedroom. The first verse came to me out of nowhere and was nothing like anything I’d ever written before.
It started as a silly, tongue-in-cheek thing, but then ended up being pretty dark. When I write with other people, I spend a lot of time talking about where the song is going, what I want the song to say, etc. I end up writing in retrospect, usually.
When I’m alone, I’m processing feelings in real time and can just let the song reveal itself. I end up writing weirder, more vulnerable stuff that way.
Miranda del Sol’s EP, when you were asleep (vol. i), is out now via Cosmica Artists.
