As music has gotten more amalgamated, with standard electronic instruments present in almost every top chart song of the decade, the band “Mili” has stood out to me. Nearly every song they release is a complete masterwork of its genre, I find every release to be more and more interesting as they constantly apply unusual techniques and instruments most would never think of. Their music has become one with cinema, at least how I see cinema, having such an overwhelming ability to convey a full story through not only lyrics but through every single note and chord, all in only 2-5 minutes.

Mili’s first album and singles admittedly weren’t all that notable, other than one or two songs; it was all fairly typical, though I do still like those songs quite a bit. Where they really picked up was with their second album “Miracle Milk”, not only did this album feature a majority of highly unique songs, but it also began a lot of trends that Mili sticks to, to this day. One such trend being uncommon instruments along with transforming ordinary sounds into instruments, such as sirens or computer parts at work. Miracle Milk also fully realized Mili’s arguably now most well-known trope, using many languages throughout the same song. Due to the very diverse backgrounds of the band’s members, they always made songs in more than just English, but previously they had only done one song that had more than one; In Miracle milk, more than half of the songs have multiple languages present. I adore every single song in the album.

Miracle Milk:

Then came “Millennium Mother,” their most experimental album so far. The experimentation creates this wonderful musical whiplash that ends up making you more aware of the individual sounds/instruments and distinct differences between tracks. A-Z is covered, you could listen to a beautiful cocktail dance with rich violin and popping accordion with hints of classical Italian, only for the next song to be composed of almost exclusively cartoon sound effects turned into one of the most interesting songs you’ll ever listen to. This album paved the way for their future endeavors with game and animation studios, being the origin point of a lot of the styles and techniques that go on to be what they’re known for by a large quantity of fan communities.

Millennium Mother:

While not the most recent of their albums, the one that had the most impact on me, and the last finished album I’ll go over is “To Kill a Living Book,” the songs in the album as well as the media it was made for changed my life. Hope, desperation, fear, acceptance, reclaiming life- Mili’s Speciality is making music with a pulse. Every song they make, especially for “Project Moon,” the creators of the game this album was made for, has a story. It feels as if you’re listening to someone’s life story. It shares the soul of the fictional characters with the listener, so much so you could mistake it for being about real people. It’s not just great from an emotional perspective either, some of the songs in this album deserve to be studied with how well they blend these abstract very human concepts into music without losing any impact, I would say they even amplify them.

To Kill a Living Book:

While not in an album yet, I wholeheartedly believe Mili’s songs for Project Moon’s newest game are all masterpieces. From a music theory perspective, and all perspectives really, all of these songs are a perfection of music. Everything from turning whale noises and sonar pings into a baseline to classic Christian choir music, it’s all in a league beyond what most famous artists have ever achieved. “To Kill a Living Book,” an already amazing and beautiful album, was so that these songs, yet to be put in an album, could run. It’s a true masterwork of music; I can’t name a band or artist who puts more care and quality into their music than Mili. Every single song is dripping with talent, and no matter the genre or the instruments or how their singer (Cassie Wei) sings, I end up loving it, even when it’s any combination of things I don’t normally like. It’s beautiful.

I highly recommend every person, no matter if you hate or love music, to listen to at least one of Mili’s songs with an open mind. I promise you’ll enjoy it.