Rainy Miller

No doubt it’s the most cinematic depiction of what makes Rainy tick, with a choral prologue that
sounds like a Burial vignette, precipitating a downpour of emotions that veer from tender to
seething bass-boosted drill blowouts. The slippery combo of self-skewering and tearful Autotuned
vocals and brittle, barely-present electronics immediately and inarguably recall Kanye’s 808s &
Heartbreak, but here refracted into greyscale tales of Northern introspection, confidently torched
‘n bleary-eyed industrial experiments.
Miller’s best known at this point for his work with his college compatriot Tom Heyes (aka
Blackhaine), whose ragged drill/power electronic subversions loom large over “Desquamation”. But
where Heyes zeroes in on viscera, isolation and substance-fueled rage, Miller’s compositions are
more pensive, melancholy and emotionally fluid, finding hopefulness in supposedly grim terrain
on tracks like ‘There’s A Fiesta MkII On Fire’. “A Fiesta burns bright,” he sings, accenting the last
word as it collapses into chattering electronics and snatched Rhodes piano loops. It’s a glorious
amalgamation of influences, folding grime and ambient signals into something altogether new.
From here, Miller pushes even further into the abyss, enlisting Space Afrika and Maxwell Sterling
to assist on ‘Breath, Sigh’, a powerful symphony of sheet noise, ice-cold pads and soulful electric
piano weaving around Miller’s vulnerable voice.
On ‘July III’, the beats are reduced to pinpricks, heaving listlessly between stolen breaths and
punctuated kick blasts, ‘while Misery is as Misery Does’ revels in negative space, allowing
overdriven pads to evoke an anxious tenor for Rainy’s melancholia. ‘is 2 Die’ grazes the same
mood before erupting into a wrecking-ball roll of distorted kick drums and elegiac synths, and
Blackhaine shows up on ‘Way Out’, the pair following 2020’s breakout “Armour” with a corrosive
back-and-forth, playing to each others’ strengths.
Benefiting mass