On “Losing My Grip”, Milky Day Takes a Sharp Turn
New Zealand-Korean singer-songwriter Milky Day has released his most unsettling single to date. “Losing My Grip” offers listeners a new side to Milky. / Unbound Entertainment Group
“I’m losing my grip on reality/ Losing my shit to insanity,” Milky Day sings on new single “Losing My Grip”, and plunges into the darkest concept of his career. This is Milky’s riskiest work to date, accompanied by a music video as unnerving as a “Black Mirror” episode.
More than any of its predecessors, “Losing My Grip” digs deep into the subconscious of anxiety and loneliness. These are themes Milky has touched on throughout his career, but often there is a semblance of comfort attached to them, as if Milky’s music can be an antidote to your sleepless nights. “Listen to the Rain”, Milky’s first single as a singer signed to Unbound Entertainment Group, best exemplifies this coziness, but other singles like “You’ll Be Alright” also offer reassurance to listeners. “I’ll make things much better,” he tells a lover on “You’ll Be Alright.” “Everything will be fine/ And I promise you’ll be alright.”
Milky’s music is driven by this tension between comfort and anxiety, which finds an equilibrium in his calming songwriting and production. “I prefer to record in the comfort of my room with some basic acoustic treatment because it makes the recording process less intimidating,” he told me in May. “In turn, my vocals usually come out sounding more raw or intimate.”
“Losing My Grip”, though, is something murkier. Here, Milky doesn’t have any of the answers and instead, tries to keep his head above water. “I try to set my fears aside but they keep chasing me,” he admits. “Round and round again, it’s like some everlasting dream.”
Unbound Entertainment Group
The song’s music video is equally unsettling. Milky portrays an office worker who slowly begins to question his reality. Shot like an arthouse horror movie, Milky travels on dark subways and works late into the night, all while the camera looms and circles around him like a voyeur. The music video’s color palette, a mixture of dark shades of blue and opaque whites mixed with bright reds, hone in on sadness and insanity. As the thoughts become too much for Milky, his meltdown overcomes him. The video’s final shot, eerily, is Milky passed out as his desk. Two office workers come to remove him as a replacement steps in behind him. As Milky is dragged out, the new worker takes his place and work resumes – as if nothing happened at all.
Milky lyrics are vague about the cause of his meltdown, but he’s playing with bold ideas here as a musician working in an industry that often believes its artists are expendable. But “Losing My Grip” isn’t just about becoming a product. On a broader scale humans are being told to do more: to work harder, to gain more followers, to spend more money, to be more beautiful, all for a chance to maybe live our best life. The cracks are starting to show for all of us, though. We’re all replaceable here, and we’re all on the verge of losing our shit. Milky’s just brave enough to say it.
