In ‘Under My Umbrella,’ Miss Grit delivers a record that feels both inward-looking and quietly confrontational, a body of work that captures the unease of self-interrogation without succumbing to introspective paralysis. The project of Queens-based artist Margaret Sohn, Miss Grit has always existed at the intersection of pop immediacy and experimental instinct, but this second full-length for Mute Records marks a decisive shift toward emotional exposure. Where earlier material cloaked feeling in futuristic concepts, ‘Under My Umbrella’ allows vulnerability to stand unarmored, revealing a songwriter willing to examine uncertainty as a creative engine rather than a flaw.
The album opens with “Tourist Mind,” an apt introduction to a record preoccupied with displacement and perception. Its layered electronics and restless momentum mirror the sensation of moving through one’s own thoughts as a temporary visitor, never fully settled. That sense of cognitive overload intensifies on “Mind Disaster,” where fractured rhythms and elastic synth lines reflect anxiety not as spectacle but as lived experience. Miss Grit’s voice remains steady throughout, grounding the turbulence with a calm that feels earned rather than performative.
Songs like “Won’t Count On You” and “It Feels Like” shift the focus from interior chaos to relational reckoning. These tracks explore emotional self-preservation with a clarity that resists melodrama, favoring directness over abstraction. “Where Is My Head” functions as a quiet thesis for the album, articulating the disorientation that comes from emotional overstimulation while refusing easy resolution. Rather than offering answers, the song lingers in the discomfort of not knowing, trusting the listener to meet it there.
“Stranger” stands out as one of the album’s most dynamic moments, marrying kinetic production with a sense of emotional confrontation. The track’s propulsive energy contrasts with its underlying themes of betrayal and alienation, capturing the paradox of feeling most alive while confronting emotional rupture. This tension recurs throughout the record, particularly on “You Will Change,” which frames transformation as both promise and threat, and “Overflow,” a song that grapples with the cost of emotional excess through jagged pop structures that never quite resolve.
The album closes with “Waste Me,” a subdued and reflective ending that feels less like surrender than acceptance. It is here that ‘Under My Umbrella’ completes its arc, arriving at a place where self-awareness replaces self-defense. The track’s restraint underscores the album’s central achievement: its refusal to dramatize growth while still honoring its difficulty.
Musically, the record benefits from a close-knit group of collaborators who enhance Miss Grit’s vision without diluting its intimacy. Contributions from Sae Heum Han add depth to the album’s electronic architecture, while Margaux Bouchegnies on bass and Preston Fulks on drums provide a supple, human foundation beneath the digital textures. Eva Liu and Luciano Rossi bring additional harmonic nuance, and Zachary Mezzo’s violin introduces a lyrical fragility that surfaces at key emotional moments. Together, these performances give the album a sense of cohesion that feels organic rather than constructed.
‘Under My Umbrella’ succeeds because it treats emotional complexity as a landscape worth mapping in detail. Miss Grit does not present clarity as a destination but as a fleeting state, one that must be continually renegotiated. In doing so, the album becomes a quiet act of defiance against the pressure to appear resolved. It is a record that invites listeners to sit with their contradictions, offering not shelter from the storm, but companionship within it.
Releases April 24, 2026
Find out more by visiting Miss Grit | Mute Records | Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook.
