On Her EP “For The Record,” Micae turns bedroom folk into diaristic symphonies of breath, string, and sincerity.
Call it a Polaroid EP: Micae’s “For The Record” feels like a hand-warmed snapshot pulled from a coat pocket—creased, human, and stubbornly present. The Canadian singer-songwriter builds a folk miniature with nothing more than guitar and her velvety, mature voice, recorded live in a bedroom with longtime friends Matt DeSimone (guitar) and Jadhé (production). Indeed, a single mic catches everything—the breath before a line, the sympathetic ring of strings, the room itself exhaling—so intimacy isn’t an effect but the architecture. The songs walk straight through love and grief toward the ordinary light of hope and social observation, refusing tidy closure. In fact, these tracks keep their rough edges on purpose; the immediacy is the point.
Musically, parsimony rules. Chords arrive like soft footfalls; arpeggios and open strings create a gentle halo where the lyric can sit upright. Moreover, the arrangements shift from sparse to subtly layered—never busy, always purposeful—so the guitar becomes a second narrator, answering phrases with little flares and sighs. However, the same minimal palette also sets a limit: at times the melodic delivery flattens and the contours blur, especially across mid-tempo passages that share similar tonal centers. In addition, the voice’s plush timbre can understate drama that the words imply. Yet the trade-off yields diaristic clarity: you hear the person first, the performance second.
A brief turn through the set: “For the record” opens like dawn through thin curtains, a confession of anger and tenderness where the guitar strokes steady the memory while the hook lifts like a small prayer. “The sky is falling!” tilts childhood recollection against heartbreak; the refrain circles like a mantra while the guitar’s pulse mimics a heart learning a new beat. “Turtleneck” is a quiet boundary-setting—lacework picking underlines lines about safety, dignity, and the slow acquisition of self; it stings, then soothes. “Do you wanna piece of me?” sharpens the edges: percussive strums and clipped phrasing turn domestic scenes into staccato confessionals, brave and unblinking. “What I wanted” drives toward a horizon it never quite catches; the lyric’s northern-lights detour becomes the thesis—arrival is not assurance—while the arrangement swells and retracts like thought. “Willow tree” closes as benediction: stoic, forgiving, the guitar shading the vocal like leaves over water, repeating the hard-won choice to live again.
Ultimately, For The Record exudes tender grit. It invites you to sit on the floor, not the stage; to honor the unvarnished moment rather than the perfect take. Moreover, it’s a reminder that small songs can carry heavy weather—and that sincerity, recorded honestly, can feel downright symphonic.
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