Mila Cloud Interview: “This music is not your typical drone”

The best of any artform has the power to stop you completely in your tracks. The thrill of the chase to reach that moment is (in my opinion) one of the best feelings you can experience. When you reach that point, there isn’t much out there that can mirror this emotion. In terms of music, the last new artist to capture the imagination in such poignant ways was Mila Cloud.

The Warsaw guitarist has spent the last several years shaping a range of bourgeoning guitar sketches that are equal parts aggressive and emotive. The difference with Mila Cloud is that she has an uncanny knack of intersecting both the brooding and beautiful aspects of life. Her compositions, the kind where you see blurry images, shapes and colours.

The self-professed cloudgazer has a slew of releases under her belt, which started in 2019 under the Mila Drone alias, and after 2020’s Invisible Cloud, 12 months later with the Mr. Underson EP, the Mila Cloud guise was born.

Following 2022’s Graylight, Mila Cloud reached the summit of her creative arc with Long Way Back from the Family Place We’ve Never Been To.

At seven songs under 30 minutes, Long Way Back from the Family Place We’ve Never Been To is filled with compositions that are like an electric volt from the void. Metallic and melodic, the tones are bruising, like a one-two combo to the solar plexus. Essentially, Mila Cloud is the architect of music that makes you feel alive. A stunning journey of the beautiful noise.

Following Long Way Back from the Family Place We’ve Never Been To taking top spot in Sun 13’s inaugural Top 25 EPs of the year, Mila Cloud was kind enough to answer some of our questions about her creative process, her musical memories, and her native Poland.

Sun 13: What are you first memories of music?

Mila Cloud: “I don’t remember it clearly or precisely, but apparently I liked singing as a child. My brother had a tape recorder with a cable microphone. When there was some music program, a chart or something similar on TV, I would stand in the middle of the room, take the microphone, and sing along with the performers on the screen. Apparently, my favourite band was Lady Pank, I liked singing with them hits such as Mniej niż zero and Obcy. I also remember their music video for the song Fabryka małp, I was a bit afraid of it, but I watched it because I liked the song very much.

“My mother also told me that when I was bored, I would sit alone in my room and sing songs I made up. My mother wanted to enrol me in a music school, but I didn’t want to, I refused. Now I regret it because I know that I could have been a little further with my musical projects. I had to figure out many things related to music and music theory, probably completely obvious ones, on my own, which took and still takes a lot of time. I assume that thanks to music school I would have learned all this faster. [It] would have a better base for my musical researches.

“I also remember that as a child I identified very strongly with my favourite artists. When I was six or seven, I cried when my favourite song dropped from number one to number five on some TV show’s charts. It was a real drama for me, I couldn’t calm down for a long time.”

2023 with Trouble In Mind Records’ Bill Roe

S13: Have your influences changed throughout the years, or have your earlier influences remained intact throughout the years?

MC: “At the age of 10-11, thanks to my older sister who had many older friends who impressed me very much, I discovered metal. I loved thrash. I listened a lot to early albums by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer. You could say these are my first inspirations. Thanks to these bands, I discovered old Black Sabbath albums, which I love to this day, and on the other hand, punk rock, hardcore, post-punk, grunge, alternative music, drone music, noise… As a teenager, I listened to a lot of records and cassettes, the music was at that time my obsession. I was discovering. I started playing guitar, first learning all these metal riffs, then trying to play some more crazy, weird stuff. And although these inspirations changed over time, metal definitely lost to the alternative, the idolatrous love for the electric guitar and heavily distorted, fuzzed sounds has remained in me from those times to this day. I also have the feeling that there is some continuity in this, that it all grows from one trunk that has grown into many different branches.”

S13: Before starting the Mila Drone / Mila Cloud project, did you have clear vision set out?

MC: “I knew I wanted to play long, flowing, trance sounds. I knew I wanted to play very slowly. I wanted it to be very personal, intimate. I wanted it to create a specific mood. I wanted it to be music that I feel good with, that doesn’t require me to compromise. I wanted it to be more connected with nature than with the human world. So that it describes a seaside forest, a wilderness, rather than a city.

“Many years before Mila, I watched a film by Czech director Petr Zelenka called Year of the Devil. By the way, Jaz Coleman from Killing Joke stars in this movie. In one of the scenes of the film, the guitarist of Jaromir Nohavica’s band (which this film is about), sets up an amplifier with a large column high in the mountains, takes his guitar and starts playing chords. I remembered this image, imagining myself doing something similar.”

S13: What were the main objectives you wanted to achieve?

MC: “I wanted this music to be my personal, intimate statement. To create a certain mood, to be a vehicle able to take you somewhere else, to some other place. Like poetry. That’s what I cared about. I mainly thought about this kind of experience, with no clear goal to achieve. Of course, now it is very touching that it reaches someone, there are people who listen to this music. I thought about it a bit at the beginning, but more important issues were related to the journey itself, the introspection, the sound.”

S13: I think Long Way Back from the Familiar Place We’ve Never Been To is the best release you’ve given us so far, with a beautiful range of textures and drones. Can you tell us about the process the making of it?

MC: “The last EP was created in the same way as the others. I record one material a year and I always act in the same way, in the same rhythm, extended in time. First, in autumn and winter I create material. It looks like I take the guitar and play, invent, arrange and select sounds. Usually in the evenings when I’m tired and sleepy. Then there is the greatest chance that these sounds will flow slowly, trance-like.

“Then, always in the summer, I go to the studio for a day and record. I can’t record alone at home. In the studio, my guide is always the same person – Adam Ziółkowski / Burning Tones. He is responsible for the final sound, he always edits, mixes and masters it all. Adam has a big influence on the shape of some songs. Recently he suggested adding sub-octave notes randomly at the end of some tracks. It turned out very well, I am very grateful to him for that.

“In the meantime, a little in winter and a little in summer, the visual layer is created – a cover and, recently, a video for one or two songs. This part is also important to me. From the beginning, the cover and video were created by Aneta / Among Scratches – she will always sense what it is about and will always choose an image that will complement and illustrate the music well. I can’t imagine Mila Cloud without Aneta.

“Finally, Paweł from Do It To Yourself prints several physical copies of the album. He has also been with Mila from the beginning, he is a very important part of the project, he makes wonderful DIY works. Thanks to it, these printed copies always look very beautiful.

“The whole process is repeated every year, I hope it stays that way. The only difference is that in the case of Long Way Back from the Familiar Place We’ve Never Been To, I decided on a different studio. This time Adam recorded me in Silent Scream Studio, where there was more space that allowed for placing two additional microphones in quite unusual places. One, to obtain deep and strange-sounding low frequencies, was placed in the ventilation duct. Another one in the soundboard of an old cello that happened to be in the studio. This could have resulted in a better and more interesting sound.”

Gentle Stranger: Inner Winter

S13: Your music reminds me of an old world where time moved a lot slower, and we had more time to think about things rather than be consumed by technology and so forth. Is this something you’ve thought about with the work of Mila Cloud?

MC: “Maybe not entirely in such a conscious and verbalised way, but yes, I wanted Mila to tell stories happening somewhere off the beaten track, in strange, liminal spaces, in nature, in memories, and not in the middle of a rushing city. I wanted this music not to add stimuli, but to limit them. Hence the minimalist form – only guitar, no rhythm section, no vocals.”

S13: Regarding your writing process, do you need a clear idea before recording, or is it more based on feel and improvisation?

MC: “Only once before writing the material did I know what it would be about, I had a prepared concept. This was the case with the Mr Underson EP. I have children, two sons. The older of them had been writing stories since he was a small child. Sometimes they were finished stories, sometimes he just started and left fragments. Over time, the younger one also started writing. I liked their courage and imagination, some of the ideas were very original and unique. I decided to make a sound illustration for these stories, of course I asked beforehand if I could. They agreed.

“Usually, however, I don’t have a ready idea for the next material. The whole thing is born in the process. I don’t come up with anything in advance, I rather get carried away and follow the sounds. I allow myself to be led.”

S13: I’d never heard the term cloud gaze before, but it sums up your music very well. Did you have the term before making the music or vice versa?

MC: “This term was coined after recording one of the EPs. I posted a link to the recordings on Facebook and wanted to describe and tag the music somehow. I didn’t know how. This music is not your typical drone, it is not shoegaze. Someone suggested it was doomgaze or dronegaze. From this mix of dronegaze/ shoegaze/ doomgaze, cloudgaze was created. I think it fits.”

S13: How much does Poland influence your music?

MC: “Difficult question. It’s probably the case that Polish clouds, Polish landscapes, what I see outside the window influence me, and thus also influence Mila’s music. Maybe this music would be a little different if I lived somewhere else. On the other hand, there is nothing consciously Polish in the music itself, in the harmonies, in the sound, any reference to the Polish musical tradition or to Polishness in general. If these influences are there, they are not conscious, they are not verbalised.”

S13: There is a lot of great experimental acts coming out of the country. How much of an inspiration is this to you with your own creative output?

MC: “It’s true, there are lots of interesting things around. Certainly, some of them are very inspiring. There’s really a lot going on in Poland. I really recommend a few things, it’s definitely worth listening to bands and artists such as Kryształ, Schröttersburg, Opollo, Sam, Zguba, EATING, Furia, AR.MA. What is most inspiring about them is the courage to follow their own path and to trust their intuition. Each of these artists record very unique, original stuff. I feel like these are inner-driven creators.”

S13: What’s next for Mila Cloud?

MC: “It’s winter, I sit and let myself be guided by the next sounds. This year I would like to release another EP. But this time it will be different than before. This time it won’t be just a guitar and only Mila. I would like to record this year’s EP with my friend Łukasz Ostrowski, who will play the lyre. The lyre itself has a very powerful, natural sound. I wonder what it will sound like with a distorted electric guitar.”

Long Way Back from the Family Place We’ve Never Been To is out now. Purchase from Bandcamp.