Fresh from supporting Griff on her only Australian headline show at Sydney’s Metro Theatre earlier this month, celebrated and widely beloved Eora/Sydney R&B artist, musician, producer, engineer and music video director Milan Ring today shares her latest single “Quicksand“, out now via Astral People Recordings.
Hallmarking her emergence into a playful and inquisitive new era, ‘Quicksand’ also acts as a tether to Milan’s previous incarnation, finding her addressing and reflecting on her younger self. With stacks of soulful, autotuned harmonies, shimmering, celestial-toned synth arps, a dusty beat and accents of Milan’s ever-nimble guitar work, touches on past struggles of breaking through glass ceilings and imposter syndrome to presently wanting to be held in love by someone, “but also the polarity that ultimately you need to hold yourself,” explains. ‘Quicksand’ is the sound of gracefully sinking into the compassion and the care that comes from accepting your own capacity to contain multitudes, sometimes harmonious, other times in contradiction, but always yourself.
Of the track, Milan elaborates: “Quicksand is about accepting yourself as you are and allowing love in. Having the safety and grounding of a love that allows you to take risks, go forward and break through the limitations and barriers that the world places on us, and that we internalise. The metaphor is that even when you appear to be climbing, the ladder is simultaneously sinking without that solid foundation”.
Listen to the new single “Quicksand” HERE
“Quicksand” follows up the previously released “Mangos”, a balmy and love-struck single that marked Milan’s return to new solo music since the release of her acclaimed 2021 debut LP I’m Feeling Hopeful. Co-produced by 18YOMAN, “Mangos” landed as the fullest and most distilled expression of Milan Ring’s beguiling talents to date, seeing the multi-faceted artist weaving the Guzheng into her songwriting for the first time in a purposeful nod to her Chinese heritage. A homage to a summer love affair, crackling with humidity and longing, oozing a weightless, hazy giddiness, “Mangos” earned praise and support from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, COLORS, NME, ACCLAIM, Wonderland Magazine, Northern Transmissions and many more, alongside rotation adds in Australia from Double J, FBi Radio, 2SER and airplay across triple j and community radio stations around the country.
An accomplid musician, producer, engineer and music director, Milan has long been a figurehead in Australia’s R&B renaissance, having collaborated with the likes of Questlove, DRAM, Chance the Rapper’s group The Social Experiment, Sampa The Great and many more. Fiercely independent, the multi-talented artist continues to create and produce all her work on Gadigal Land in the Inner West of Eora/Sydney.
Released in late 2021, Milan Ring’s long-awaited debut full-length I’m Feeling Hopeful was a transportive and restorative document of her “observations of the world around me and the world within,” spawning singles “BS“, “Pick Me Up“, “Sydney Hue” and “Hide With You” and boasting collaborations with BARKAA, Jean Deaux, BLESSED and Che Lingo, subsuming flouris of soul, hip hop, electronica, indie and dub within her forward-thinking R&B. The album was released to immediate and rapturous acclaim, earning multiple Album of the Week honours at pivotal Australian radio stations triple j and FBi Radio, and international praise from the likes of NME, COLORS, GRM Daily, The Line of Best Fit, Clash, Notion and many more. It culminated in Milan picking up nominations for Record of the Year and Song of the Year (‘Sydney Hue (feat. BLESSED)’) at the 2022 FBi Radio SMAC Awards alongside nods for Breakthrough Independent Artist of the Year and Best Independent Soul/R&B Album at the 2022 Australian Independent Records Awards.