“The first time I visited Philly I just remember there was a huge Carvana!” laughs Margaret Sohn, the New York-based, Korean-American electronic musician behind Miss Grit, referencing their first trip to Fishtown, which had Miss Grit opening The Fillmore for indie rock veterans Metric in October of 2022. The month prior, Miss Grit dropped “Like You,” the lead single off of 2023 debut full-length Follow the Cyborg (which FADER called, “an album of sleek electronica-laced indie rock that doesn’t skimp on the anthemic moments.”) and first release after signing to Mute Records, their label home ever since, which Sohn tells me during a recent phone chat they’re still kind of processing: “I was really shocked! They do have a family feel to them, and there are creative people working on the business side… It’s because of them that I opened for New Order once and I did the Depeche Mode ‘Ghosts Again’ remix!”
This coming Friday, May 29th, Margaret Sohn will be returning to Fishtown for the penultimate date of Miss Grit’s tour supporting Irish noise rockers Just Mustard (who were last in the 215 in 2022 when opening a now-legendary show for Fontaines D.C. at Underground Arts), which will have the two at Johnny Brenda’s. Miss Grit is currently touring behind Under My Umbrella, the follow-up to Follow the Cyborg, which sees Sohn effortlessly exploring their affections for trip-hop and dream-pop alike. “I approached it very differently, more personally. I wanted to be a bit more direct in the things I was singing about and not filter myself. It’s a really heavily layered album, because I kept everything,” Sohn tells me during our chat this past Friday from their parents’ house in Michigan, where they’re comfortably spending their first real day off from tour between dates in Chicago and Toronto.
“It does feel really different, even though the process was similar,” Margaret tells me, referencing the fact that both LPs were largely created in their Queens apartment (They were also both mixed by Sohn’s longtime friend and collaborator Aron Kobayashi Ritch of our buddies Momma.), despite some sonic differences. I point out that Miss Grit’s self-released sophomore EP, Impostor, actually celebrated its fifth birthday this year, to which Sohn replies, “To be honest, I’m always very hard on my previous work; I can be quite critical of it [laughs],” before confessing that it may have more in common with their current output than they immediately realized: “It was still written in my room, so it’s very similar, and very different maybe more in my approach. Back then, I was more purposefully molding what I wanted things to sound like, and now I let the sounds happen more naturally.” They also admit that the Impostor era was a significant milestone: “That was one of the first times I started playing live more seriously, and also the first time I got to go abroad, going to Europe and the UK.”
And while Miss Grit hasn’t done a ton of touring since spring of 2024 (which served as much inspiration behind Under My Umbrella), Sohn has been on the road for the entirety of the month and is feeling quite at ease at the moment: “On stage, it’s really nice to feel more comfortable with the set, because when you’re just playing sporadically, you can’t really practice or get more comfortable playing the songs.” They also say that the new songs, with their strong techno beats, have proven exceptionally fun to play live. When I ask what can be anticipated of the performance this coming Friday, they tell me that you can expect to hear a lot of them: “I’ll be playing a solo set, all from the new record. And I bring in another visual aspect to make it not so lonely onstage [laughs]; I have my projector that I’ve had forever.” But they do admit that everyone should also stick around for Just Mustard: “They’re so, so amazing, just the sweetest people, and they have been so welcoming and friendly, and they’re one of my favorite bands to see live, if not my favorite.”
*Get your tickets here.
