Nathalie Miller - like you used to

Massachusetts raised and now New York City based artist Nathalie Miller has a new EP out today, and even if you don't normally appreciate pop music, this one is well worth your time. like you used to starts off with "kansas," which we covered last month and called "an alt-pop masterpiece." After multiple listens, it keeps getting better and better, and more infectious. Miller seems to be an expert at making slow burn alt-pop singles in the vein of artists like Blondshell and Lucy Dacus, and "witches don't burn" certainly fits that while also breaking out of that mold. The song starts off as a moody track that fits right in with "kansas" before moving onto a style that would almost fit in a musical, or is a few steps away from being a lost Neutral Milk Hotel song. "sit and stew" is almost folky, "slippers" is a piano ballad, and the title track is a lilting waltz goes alt-pop. That's the true appeal of like you used to. It's a collection of five songs that live in different styles while all working together perfectly as one cohesive EP.

Nathalie Miller says of "witches don't burn":

“Coming from Massachusetts, I was thinking about the witch trials and how we still refer to the victims as ‘witches’, but they weren’t burning witches – they were burning women. I tied that in with the purity culture we use to shame girls who we view as kinda wild and how we all partake in some kind of commentary about it, even if we think it’s positive. I had a friend once tell me I had a thing for befriending manic pixie dream girls, and that was also something I was thinking about, how that archetype of person pops up in my life repeatedly.”

You can listen to like you used to below. The EP is out now on Lulu Records. For more on Nathalie Miller, check out the artist's website.