Mijo Invites A Return To Love and Self In “Golden Moment"

The highly anticipated full-length release from Melbourne musician Mijo Biscan has finally graced our ears and it has solidly met, and exceeded, our expectations. After the success of the release of his singles in 2019, where “That’s So Pretty” spoke of unrequited love having “better to have loved and lost” and “We’ve Got The Numbers” taking aim at bringing power to the people, saying “we’ve got the numbers to put them out on the street”, the diversity in subject matter teased an album full of a personal analysis of life’s greatest joys and fiercest challenges.

Mijo is willing to go the extra mile for his craft. Eager to push the concept of solitude as a pathway to inspiration, Mijo travelled to Iceland where he stayed alone in a remote weatherboard cabin, surrounded by mountains and a breathtaking fjord. “It was dead quiet. Shockingly quiet,” he said. “In the midst of the silence, the only thing I could hear were my innermost thoughts waiting to manifest into new songs.” Mijo’s month-long songwriting retreat formed the genesis for a creative shift. It was the crucial starting point for his upcoming record, to be released later this year. In his spare time, along with being a prolific songwriter, Mijo is a creative mindset coach, vegan of 18 years, and a sunny optimist is usually seen sporting a bright yellow t-shirt determined to find the golden thread running through the mess of life. 

We sat down with Mijo to chat all things golden.

So your debut album “Golden Moment” delves into darker territory that might not fully align with your usual optimism.. Or do you think one must explore the darkness to find the light?

I think that both need to exist and that we ignore our dark side or shadow to our detriment. One cannot exist without the other. Nothing is all good or all bad. There is a totality that we need to grasp and appreciate. I remember this realisation hitting me square between the eyes when I was at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, looking at a Gustav Klimt painting called Death and Life. On one side is the vibrant, cosy, connected world of life and on the other was the patient, eventual presence of death. It helped me understand that the reason ‘life’ is so valuable is because it’s here now, but it’s rare and finite. It was the first time I had seen it contrasted in this way. I became unafraid of death and became appreciative of it. I began to value the role it plays in making life sublime. It’s necessary. It’s part of the totality. We aught not fear it, but respect and appreciate the role it plays. I know this is a hard sell to some people, but it allows us to not get decimated by it when it shows up for the people around us, or eventually us. We need lows to experience highs. We need loud to appreciate quiet. We need dark to appreciate light.

Can you tell us a little about the album?

I dove deep into writing more than 40 new songs for this album. I wanted to delve into making great songs, recording them amazingly with great collaborators and have it mixed and mastered beautifully by the best in the biz.

I spent the bulk of my timing putting the album together in Gotye’s barn studio just outside of Melbourne. Having the time and space and great gear allowed me to sculpt the parts and the sounds until I was happy with it.

Though I’ve released albums with my former band Lamplight, and I’ve done a solo EP, this is my first major solo work.

It covers some of the uplifting themes of connecting with your life, living it fully with a sprinkle of love songs at the end. But, it is not afraid to go into the darkness of death or the strong negative emotions in “Guilt, shame, horror” (the title sums it up) or stark instructional reminders of standing up to authority in “We’ve got the numbers”.

I love that life is varied and diverse. I couldn’t do an album of one thing, one theme or one sound. I wanted to go to many of the corners of life and bring back many different coloured things for show and tell in an attempt to expand the palette of what most of us are getting from music these days.

The title track is all about maintaining that optimism in harder times, can you tell us a bit about the song and how you stay optimistic?

Golden Moments is a ‘rock meditation’ on accessing the present moment. Being aware of what’s beautiful right now. Anxiety is plaguing much of the world through catastrophising about possible future calamity. We live in the safest and most prosperous time in all of human history, ever. Sometimes we need to remember, in this moment, I’m safe, I have everything I need, I’m loved by someone and life is golden. 

I have a number of ways to stay optimistic or turn the ‘muck’ into gold. One way is through my morning routine of getting up and down to the beach for a walk. I’ll visualise a great day ahead and I’ll tap into what I can be excited about today. 

Evening gratitude is another great way. It’s impossible to feel fear/anxiety AND gratitude at the same time. It’s a practice. I have a number of other practices which involve shifting my focus from what I don’t like in a situation to what I love about it, what I’m learning from it, how the current challenge is making me better and more able to handle future challenges. The basic algorithm is to turn ‘problems’ into growth.

I have 1,000,000 things to say on this topic, hence its becoming a theme for the album.

You’ve been known to use solitude as a pathway for inspiration, was this the same for the writing process of the album?

A few of the songs for this album came from my time locked away in a cabin in the north of Iceland on my own for a month, where I focused just on writing songs. Many of the other songs were written in a share house in Fairfield by the Yarra River while my housies were out at work and I had a quiet house to myself. 

I find that the quiet, combined with being present and undistracted allows for creative ideas to surface. At this point it’s my job to be available for them, stay present, nurture them to fruition and get it down on paper or an audio recording. That was my process for many of these songs. It continues to be my process whenever I want to open the creative faucet.

Favourite track off the album?

This changes day by day. Here’s my top 3 and why. 

1.     Oh Raven: Written in the cabin in Iceland. When I perform it or listen to it, I get transported back to that moment and the otherworldliness of Iceland and that time in my life.

2.     You’ve got your life: A very confronting and challenging moment in my life where I was reminded yet again that my life is precious, I get one shot and it’s vital that I self-actualise and bloom as the pure creative expression of the universe.

3.     Guilt, shame, horror: I love the sax and violin duel in the middle of the song. Also, that it was incredibly healing to tap into and release those emotions to move forward in life. 

One golden moment that has shaped you in the last year?

Getting this album out! I’ve had a number of set-backs with taking three attempts to get a film clip made for “You’ve got your life”. Each time I’ve copped a slap in the face, I get out the ice-pack, have a quick whinge, focus on the time and money that went down the gurgler and feel like chucking it all in! And THEN my life affirming algorithm kicks in and I ask myself what I’m learning, how is this making me a better musician/artist? What do I need to change in my approach to get this moving?

I have learned a lot about the world and myself through this album making process. If I’ve paid close enough attention, hopefull it’s another step in my evolution.