MSKING. Embodying Musical Expression
MSKING is in pursuit of carving out a niche for themselves in the modern grunge scene. Synthesizing their taste for all things angst with a skill set ranging from early baroque polyphonic nomenclatures to contemporary styles of phrasing rhythms. Imagine Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” meets “Together” by The XX.
“I’m really excited to put something out there -- I hope our music can be something that people latch on to -- I know it’s helped me”, Karlie Ricky-Bagnani, lead guitar and one of the voices of MSKING, noted during our interview while discussing the impact of music on her own life. She was accompanied by her other bandmates: Lew Miru, who you can find on vocals, guitar, bass, and synth; and Sam Johnson, their longtime drummer and fellow alumnus from their university days.
Like many other bands, MSKING finds their plans for concerts and practice upheaved for the time being, but they remain tenacious. The band touched on using time apart to explore themselves as musicians. They were able to expand on their already impressive music portfolios and explore their tastes in different genres. Lew and Sam also mentioned how the band was able to really sit down together to focus on their work behind the scenes to bring everyone’s ideas together on writing new music. I look forward to what they’ll be producing in the future, but it is difficult to place the band’s genre into a singular category. Though, you could argue that it would fall into favor for anyone who has enjoyed works from artists such as: The Smashing Pumpkins, Incubus, or The XX. It’s always welcomed to see a group able to perform songs that they like playing rather than trying to fit themselves into a mold. Karlie even hinted that love songs are on deck for release in the upcoming months.
MSKING started when the trio met during college and, up until that point, they had been embracing music as a means of expressing themselves from. Now, they are in pursuit of creating music for much the same reasons. Lew had been trained in classical voice since she was thirteen and mostly sang to herself. Funny enough, she wasn’t inclined to perform in front of others until she joined her high school’s talent show on a whim. That propelled her to continue to pursue music in college, where she met up with Sam and formed a short-lived group that was the precursor to MSKING. Karlie and Lew met through shared classes in music theory and performance whereupon they found that their voices and passions harmonized perfectly. Thus was the birth of the band we know today.
The group has flourished since their debut single “She”. In the following year they released another single, “Bad Joke”, as well as their first EP, Apathetic Sympathy. They're a new band, but they definitely have the potential to fill the void that came after the late 90s to early 00s angst scene seemed to fizzle out and usher in the age of pop music. And I don't mean that they'll fall into the fashion of mimicry, but in a way that brings a breath of fresh air to the genre that many of have been looking for. We'll be watching with great interest for what they have in store for us.
