From the time that Danish “cross-pop” duo miaw, composed of Liza Dries and Frederik Fog, first united during their time in Cologne, Germany, the pair knew that there could be a creative spark between them. When they got in the studio together, that manifested itself almost, if not quite, immediately—in the form of an ethereal and jumping sound that combined the motifs of breakbeat, deconstructed club, and other electronic and indie genres.
But as time has gone on and the two have gotten more directly in touch with each other’s creative rhythms, it's been the continued evolution of their loose, freeflowing creative process—and the combined efforts of their artistic intuitions—that have allowed miaw to gain traction on a global stage. Their forthcoming EP, entitled Ciao, is simply the latest evidence of the natural fit of their partnership.
Although Dries and Fog shared many of the same music tastes when they met in Cologne, they came from very distinct backgrounds. Dries was primarily a vocalist and producer, and she was working on her own solo, hyperpop-inspired project—largely in the confines of her bedroom. Fog, meanwhile, had spent years playing the guitar and drums with various live acts, and he was performing consistently with an experimental indie-rock outfit called Infant Finches.
The two met by chance, through mutual friends in Cologne, but they discovered their shared affinities—for artists like 100 Gecs, Bby Eco, and Body Meat—when they found a phone, hooked up to a massive bluetooth speaker and left unattended at a street party. The pair tossed a bunch of songs on the queue, and they both recall that moment as a pivotal one in their budding friendship.
Fog, meanwhile, was trying his hand privately at producing some of the experimental drum-and-bass and shoegaze-inspired crossover music that his friends were making back in Copenhagen. He and Dries, naturally, decided to try combining their efforts.
But after their first few hours huddled in Dries’ kitchen, they weren’t coming away with anything particularly inspiring.
“I don't know what happened, but we were sitting there for like four hours—it was really bad lighting and just a bit doom-y somehow. And we were sitting there and it just went from worse to worse,” said Dries. “And it felt like waking up after four hours and looking at the track and being like, ‘This is the worst thing I've ever made. This is the worst thing I've ever been part of.’ [laughs] I can't even remember what it was.”
Thankfully, the pair didn’t let that initial session discourage them. They met again a couple of weeks later, and they put their heads together to really figure out what the crossover of sounds they were going for could ultimately look like. From that session came their first demo. Then another. Then another.
By the time they got their feet under them, they decided to schedule a short trip to a summer house in Denmark in order to record and produce their first EP— My Petswan. Although the space and time in which they worked on the project was pretty clearly defined, their process wasn’t. Fog and Dries simply attempted to capture the mood of the day and bounce ideas off of each other accordingly, leaving no room for judgement or for apprehension.
“We never really figure anything out, in a way. We just kind of give [each other] space to do stuff,” said Fog. We never ever kind of consider what we want to do or how we want to blend [sounds] differently. We don't really have any pre-thought ideas about anything when we make music. At least, we try to just do it. And then we talk a lot about things and then we catch the feeling of the day somehow, and it just comes really naturally.”
Even if Dries and Fog didn’t have a distinct plan for how they were going to blend their various genre influences heading into their work on My Petswan, the end result comes across seamlessly. From the breakbeat-propelled vocal swoons of “ATT” to the swarming, synth-strung melodies of tracks like “Bad Day” and “Cleaned Up DK,” every fragment of an idea, every loose sonic thread, seems to work its way to the forefront over the course of the project’s 21-minute runtime.
For both artists, though, that first EP was an opportunity to get acclimated to working in this sort of setting. While Fog was more familiar with a band setting than a bedroom production one, Dries had never played in a band before—and opening herself up to the ideas and nuances of collaboration was just as much of a process of growth as discovering the actual sound of miaw.
“It's my first time working together with someone… I also didn't play in bands,” said Dries. “So it's been really crazy to collaborate on this big level where you really know each other. I trust Fred’s sounds completely and he trusts me. It’s just this sync or dynamic of you can always make something together.”
After Fog and Dries spent some time basking in the glow of that first EP, which received international radio play and helped take the project to new heights, they set to work on their follow-up project— Ciao.
Their creative process on Ciao, at least ostensibly, isn’t any different. The pair will still toss ideas around and take and work with whatever feels right between them. But as they’ve continued to spend more time in the studio, miaw has taken on a fuller form. Every bend and turn in a track feels distinctly more intentional, and many of their sounds and nods to other genres feel fuller and more directly fleshed out.
Their recent catalogue of songs and demos far exceeds what will be included on the EP, and that’s a direct result of their constant commitment to the creative process. Dries and Fog wanted Ciao, to a certain extent, to display a fuller range of what they were capable of together, and on that account, they decided to reach towards more instinctual feelings—streamlining their work and their decision-making in order to crystallize whatever initial feeling they were attempting to capture.
The result is certainly not something wholly different from My Petswan, but it is a project that serves as a temporary culmination of their creative partnership, first founded at a street party in Cologne, across its five tracks.
“I really like that we tried a lot of different versions with the songs, sometimes trying to make them more streamlined and normal,” said Fog. “Just the feeling that, maybe I don't know if I can defend why [a song] does this right now, but it does it and it's great… But it goes back to the original feeling that we have. And now I feel like everything makes sense and I can defend everything.”
