Mia Porter‘s debut track, “pivot”, that we are glad to be premiering today, explores human greed, the search for meaning, and the disconnection between man and nature – “Dirty cities, dirty minds, and all that we take / Yet we feel nostalgic and tear up at the picture of a lake.” The single is taken from her upcoming debut EP, okay, a collection of 5 songs in which she questions herself existentially as a 30-year old millennial woman.

“pivot” is built around a punchy kick and snare groove, some soft-clipped tom fills, and a meaty guitar riff. It’s a pretty straightforward indie rock shell that places Porter’s challenging lyrics front and center. Yet the song doesn’t take itself too seriously – as she sings “I feel I have to take nude pictures of myself / and then look at them afterwards and being all comfortable,” we hear a burst of lead guitar that sounds like the musical equivalent of a hand-over-mouth “Oh my word!” It’s deeply Sugarcubes, or in more contemporary terms Cate le Bon, who Porter credits as an influence. These tongue-in-cheek embellishments build throughout the track, lending playful quirk, but never getting in the way of the song’s absolutely undeniable groove. They invite the listener to share Porter’s eyebrow-raised view of our collective ego – “I guess we have to have it all / We stand up and feel so fucking tall.”

The irony of the song is reinforced by its accompanying music video. It features Berlin based actress and model Sophie Bogdan as a melodramatic superhero dancing on the rooftops of Istanbul. The hero is clad in a fabulous red outfit which, for me at least, immediately brought to mind the US version of Kate Bush’s 1978 “Wuthering Heights” video – the so-called “red dress version.” Like Bush, Bogdan’s hero is at once charismatic and ridiculous – wonderfully embodying all the silly traits of human self-seriousness. The superhero dances out the song’s outro – a truly strange, almost spaghetti western passage of acoustic guitar and whistling.

Watch the “pivot” video and support Mia Porter via Bandcamp below.