Vancouver, Canada band Mi’ens, is comprised of Kim Glennie on guitar/loops/Moog, with the polyrhythmic blastbeats of Evan Heggen on drums. Mi’ens’ forthcoming LP Future Child due out this year via Kill Rock Stars (Unwound, Elliott Smith, Sleater Kinney, Deerhoof) is described as departure and extension, of previous releases. Today, they have given fans another taste of the album, with “Rifft Valley,” The track reminds me of the last time I saw Steve Albini waling on about Studs Terkel, with his partners Todd Trainer and Bob Weston, which is a very nice thing.

The full-length was recorded and mixed by Jesse Gander  (Brutus, Japandroids) in spring of 2019 at Rain City Recorders in Vancouver, Canada, and mastered by Stu McKillop. All tracks are written by Mi’ens, with the addition of guest guitarist and collaborator Steffen Sidiropoulos on the album’s final track “Mondlandung.”

Guitarist/vocalist Kim Glennie on “Rifft Valley:”

“Rifft Valley” takes the listener on a mythic, winding journey with a skittery feel, awash with symbolism. We chose to weave heavy drums that lock in with an insistent bass line, discordant, distant loops, and technical guitar lines expressed alternately in precise angularities or freeform shredding.
I was inspired by Rift Valley in Iceland, which marks the boundary between tectonic plates, as well as the site of early parliament. The lyrics are a commentary on the growing gap between rich and poor, and like the active volcanic fissure region, these social strata are uncertain and ever-changing.

“The black cone” in the lyrics references the monument to civil disobedience in Reykjavík: “the few and what they own”. We are all small in the longer view of “geological time”. Guitar and loop fuzz within flexed and taut definition, galvanizing propulsive percussion and intensifying to a swirling, chaotic crescendo.

The black cone/ The rift grows wide/ Geological time
The black cone/ Divest and divide/ Growth and decline
Techtonic states/ The black cone/ The few and what they own

Order Future Child here