Miya Folick's "This Time Around" rewards close listening with sophisticated architectural arrangements where producer Justin Raisen and collaborators—drummer Matt Johnson, bassist Jesse Chandler, keyboardist Kirin J Callinan—construct restrained, emotionally intelligent soundscapes where every element serves purpose. The album explores whether people can change through increasing spaciousness as emotional difficulty deepens. Essential for listeners who trust craft over surface appeal.
⚡ Quick Answer: Miya Folick's "This Time Around" rewards close listening with its architectural sophistication. Producer Justin Raisen and her collaborators—drummer Matt Johnson, bassist Jesse Chandler, keyboardist Kirin J Callinan—create restrained, emotionally intelligent arrangements where every element serves purpose. The album explores whether people can change, structured with increasing spaciousness as emotional difficulty deepens, transforming initial atmospheric impressions into load-bearing songcraft.
You already own this one. It’s been sitting there, and you’ve probably played it the way you play something you like but don’t quite trust yet — half-listening, letting it run while you do something else.
Tonight, put the phone down.
This Time Around came out in 2023 on Nettwerk, and Miya Folick made it with producer Justin Raisen — the same Justin Raisen who has worked with Charli XCX, Angel Olsen, and Sky Ferreira, which tells you something about the register this record is operating in. It was tracked largely in Los Angeles, and it sounds like it: there’s a dryness to the room, a slight shimmer in the high end, a sense that the windows are open and the city is just outside.
What you probably noticed on the first few listens: her voice. It’s the obvious thing, and it’s correct to notice it. Folick has a soprano that can go from conversational to operatic inside a single phrase without announcing the shift.
What you probably missed: the architecture underneath it.
The Room Inside the Record
Drummer Matt Johnson — who has played with Jeff Buckley’s old band, with St. Vincent, with Father John Misty — is not doing anything flashy here. That’s the point. His restraint on tracks like “Get Out” and “Cost of Living” is the kind of restraint that takes years to develop, the kind where every hit has a reason. Listen for the way he sits behind the beat rather than on top of it. The whole record breathes because of that choice.
Bassist Jesse Chandler and keyboardist Kirin J Callinan contribute textures that you hear as atmosphere on the first pass and as load-bearing structure on the fifth. The piano on “Downswing” is doing something specifically strange with its voicings — not wrong, but tilted, the chords just slightly unexpected. Raisen and Folick reportedly spent significant time in pre-production mapping the emotional arc of the record as a whole before individual arrangements were finalized. You can feel that in how the back half of the album opens up, the arrangements getting more spacious as the emotional material gets harder.
What the Songs Are Actually About
Folick has talked in interviews about the album being concerned with the question of whether people can change — specifically whether she can change, whether the same patterns keep cycling back around. The title is not hopeful. It’s diagnostic.
“Stop Talking” is the obvious single, and it earned that status, but don’t let it be the whole thing. “Freak Out” sits right after it in the sequence and it’s where the record reveals its real anxiety — the production strips down to almost nothing and her voice suddenly has nowhere to hide. That emptiness is deliberate. Engineer Craig Silvey, who has worked on records by Arcade Fire and Florence and the Machine, knows how to use space as pressure.
The closer, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” is the record being fully honest with itself in a way that most records avoid until it’s too late. It’s not a reclamation and it’s not an attack. It’s something harder: a reckoning that doesn’t resolve.
Go back to the beginning after you hear it.
🎵 Key Takeaways
- 🎯 Producer Justin Raisen and collaborators (Matt Johnson, Jesse Chandler, Kirin J Callinan) construct arrangements where restraint and spacing do the emotional heavy lifting—nothing flashy, everything purposeful.
- 🏗️ The album's architecture deliberately mirrors its thematic arc: pre-production mapped the emotional progression, with arrangements becoming more spacious as the lyrical material darkens, creating load-bearing texture disguised as atmosphere.
- 🎤 Folick's soprano range (conversational to operatic within phrases) is the obvious entry point; the real revelation is how the rhythm section's positioning—drummer sitting behind the beat, bassist creating tilted voicings—makes the whole record breathe.
- ❓ The album explores cyclical self-patterns and the question of whether people can change; the title's diagnostic tone and the unresolved reckoning of closer 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' reject easy catharsis.
- 🔇 Engineer Craig Silvey uses strategic silence—particularly on 'Freak Out'—as a pressure mechanism, stripping production down so Folick's voice has nowhere to hide.
Who produced 'This Time Around' and what's his track record?
Justin Raisen produced the album; he's previously worked with Charli XCX, Angel Olsen, and Sky Ferreira, positioning this record in a sophisticated indie-pop register. The production was tracked largely in Los Angeles, which accounts for the dryness and slight shimmer in the high end.
What makes Matt Johnson's drumming on this album different from typical production?
Johnson sits behind the beat rather than on top of it—a restrained choice that took years to develop. Every hit has a purpose, and this positioning is what allows the entire record to breathe rather than push forward aggressively.
What's the central theme Folick is exploring lyrically?
The album examines whether people can change, specifically whether Folick herself can break cyclical patterns. The title 'This Time Around' is diagnostic rather than hopeful, and the album refuses easy resolution.
How does the album's structure reflect its emotional content?
Raisen and Folick spent significant time in pre-production mapping the emotional arc before finalizing arrangements. The back half opens up with increasingly spacious production as the emotional material becomes heavier, using silence and stripped-down production as pressure tactics.
Why should 'Freak Out' matter more than 'Stop Talking'?
'Stop Talking' is the obvious single, but 'Freak Out' reveals the record's real anxiety by stripping production down to almost nothing, leaving Folick's voice exposed without textural refuge. Engineer Craig Silvey uses that emptiness as deliberate pressure.