MILCK's "Into Gold" Videos Will Make You Cry (and Inspire You to Change The World)
MILCK's new EP is accompanied by a quintet of videos.
MILCK launched her music career as an activist, singing for justice and for unheard voices.
After her song "I Can't Keep Quiet" went viral at the 2016 women's march, she became an unofficial voice of the Trump "Resistance" movement. She connected deeply with many fans by being open about her history with eating disorders, mental illness, and sexual assault, and her music emanates the same kind of honesty, vulnerability, and love that informed her online confessions.
Now, the artist behind the magic—Connie Lim—is turning her attention inward, an act that she believes is "essential to create the outer peace we long to see in our modern world."
Her new album, Into Gold, is a raw, moving, wide-eyed tribute to change in all its forms. "I've realized in my journey that the only way to bring change into this world is by first healing and respecting myself," she said. "And I hope my music is the soundtrack to each gentle rebel's journey towards becoming the change he/she/they wants to see in the world."
Each song on the EP is accompanied by a video. All together, the project follows Lim as she journeys past heartbreak, deep into her own pain, and finally into the light of possibility and hope.
These are delicate, optimistic songs and videos, carefully crafted and made with love. Together, they tell a story, beginning with the end of a relationship and following the protagonist as she looks inward, begins to heal, broadcasts her story on television, discovers a group of women who carry her weight alongside her, and ultimately takes her throne and presents her vision of a better world.
The videos are refreshingly minimalist and always hopeful, avoiding colorful maximalism and the negativity and desperation that defines a great deal of today's pop music, exchanging weight and dissonance for soft lighting, clean tableaus, flawless production, and simple arrangements.
The art of Kitsungi is a method of fixing broken pottery by filling its cracks up with gold. With Into Gold, MILCK performs a kind of Kitsungi on her own wounds, spinning them into jet fuel for her own healing journey, painting over her scars with gold leaf. "It took me years to turn these tears from water into gold," she sings on "Gold." "Yeah, I worked for it. I'm proud of it."
As Leonard Cohen said, "There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in." MILCK's work is an exercise in mining those cracks and in willfully opting to let the light in.
The videos and songs of Into Gold are earnest and idealistic, but MILCK has clearly worked for her right to hope "If I am to rule, then may I submit to love," reads the pull quote at the beginning of the final song, "If I Ruled the World," which features lyrics about faster WiFi, naptime at work, and universal healthcare. Now there's a movement to get behind.
Watch the videos here:
YouTubeyoutu.be
