The British-Japanese musician uses her mind palace (the Misoverse) to write albums and defy genre
For the past couple of years, there’s been a quiet uprising happening in music. More and more, artists are rejecting the genres bestowed on them, and for good reason: no one likes to be put in a certain box and told to stay there. Typically, genre helps wider audiences to understand artists (especially those they’re not yet acquainted with), but at what point does a guiding description become a restrictive, inescapable definition?
Having been asked time and time again to define the music that she makes, Miso Extra developed her own, unique solution: the Misoverse. When in the past she has been categorised as pop or electro-pop (she does also have a song called “Pop”), today, she doesn’t want to be defined by genre. Instead, it’s the Misoverse that encompasses all her creative endeavours.
Although you might struggle to define it, you’ll almost certainly have fun while tuning into the Misoverse. As the title of her debut album Earcandy might suggest, the 12-track project is packed with sugary earworm melodies and brain-scratching layers. She calls it “umami for the ears”, though arguably, the new album is the sweetest she’s ever sounded, particularly when compared to her earlier, slightly darker releases.
Born in Hong Kong to a British father and Japanese mother, Miso Extra spent her childhood in Buckinghamshire before moving to London, eventually releasing her first tracks in 2021. Two years later, in 2023, she signed with Transgressive Records, and in May 2025, I find myself sitting across from her, in the top-floor studio of Transgressive’s north London hub. Posters of label mates decorate the walls: Damon Albarn, SOPHIE and Arlo Parks.
Miso has spent the past year recording her album between Transgressive’s HQ and Albarn’s Studio 13. Finally, last Friday (May 16), it was released to the world. Below, we spent an afternoon in the studio discussing all things Earcandy.
How are you feeling about releasing your debut album?
Miso Extra: I’ll be honest, I haven’t really thought about it because I’m mainly thinking about performing live. The live shows in June are the next thing, which is super exciting. We’re doing Village Underground, as well as Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Was there a starting point?
Miso Extra: No, it’s hard to pinpoint a start with anything. It’s like, when did you pick up a pen? It’s a chain of events that keeps progressing. It’s very much a collaborative album because I got to work with some of my heroes, which is pretty sick – Metronomy and A. K. Paul, and then being able to work with friends I’d met along the way like Harve. You reach a point where you realise ‘I’ve got quite a few songs now’ – my team was like ‘I think this is the album’.
Now that the album is finished, has a theme or a message revealed itself?
Miso Extra: I don’t like to influence the audience too much. It’s theirs now. I’ve done my bit and I think, when you put it out into the world, it’s the audience that gives it meaning and value. At the end of the day, I want it to sound fun. And as long as it felt good in the moment, it’s like capturing that moment in time. A time capsule.
How did the Misoverse come to exist?
Miso Extra: The conversation around what it is that I make came up a lot. What genre is it? What is it? Because in my head, it’s not just music. I don’t think of myself as a musician so much as a creative and my creative output falls under the Misoverse. Anything I make is part of this world in which I exist. Then it evolved into a community – it’s like the Marvel Universe!
So your music can’t be put into one genre, it can just be categorised under the Misoverse?
Miso Extra: It sounds incredibly pretentious to say that, but I can’t define it, so I just came up with a word for it. It’s a universe because the Venn diagram would get too big. I came up with a word so I don’t have to over-explain.
When you picture the Misoverse, what’s in it?
Miso Extra: Cute dogs. Dog memes. Anything that’s super cute is pretty hot on my mind. All things Earcandy. I like to think of it as a parallel universe. Sometimes I think, ‘I’ll go and sit in there for a bit’, like a mind palace. Also, I didn’t know this until recently but not everyone has an internal monologue!? What’s going on in their brain! Is it hold music the whole time? I’m happy with my universe, thank you.
Your Japanese heritage has obviously had a huge creative impact on your work. Was this something you wanted to bring to your music from the start?
Miso Extra: I think it’s just evolved. I had friends who said to me, ‘you can speak Japanese, so why wouldn’t you use that?’ So I gave it a go. It’s who I am, so why would I not use the tools available to me? Plus, you have the luxury of picking from a greater pool of words. The melodies and cadences are slightly different in both languages, so you can chop and change depending on which one suits certain songs. It’s like having two computers.
Do you have a favourite Japanese word?
Miso Extra: I think Japanese onomatopoeia is brilliant. They have so many words to describe the sounds of things. There’s a lyric in “Pop” where I say ‘kari kari’, that’s the sound of gnawing on something crunchy.
Is there anything that you’re manifesting?
Miso Extra: I’d love to do some shows in Japan! If I think hard enough about it, it’ll happen.
Earcandy is out now