Featured GGT: MiLES — Good Game Talent

Independent artist MiLES. is on the rise to glory on his first single release of 2021 with “Wherever It Is”. The track was released just last week on May 28th, 2021 and I haven’t been able to take it off repeat, seriously.

In his single MiLES uses his raw vocals over smooth, blissful guitar, bringing peace to the listeners’ ears. The background vocals bring an uplifting element of sweetness to the track.

The track builds from beginning to end, bringing a beautiful climax full of nostalgic guitar progressions and beautiful stacks of vocals at the end of the track.

These are some questions I had with him:

Who is MiLES.? Tell us about you and your artistry, what has influenced you to make music?

MiLES. is a way of expressing myself as a young black multihyphenate creative through the art form that is music. Growing up, I’ve been playing instruments and singing in choirs practically my whole life. I think that I knew I was going to be able to express myself like the people I heard. I really looked up to Bruno Mars back when he was just dropping all these pop anthems. His ability to perform whether I saw him in a video or not was just crazy to me. As I got older and came about my own taste, I found Flower Boy by Tyler and consumed all the media around it and Tyler and became a really big fan of him, which looking at it now is kind of ironic in a sense (y’know, Yonkers?). The DIY aesthetic he started out with, plus his production style, I kind of took it and it became the choir of my musical identity as mine changed. As I get older, my influences change even when that Tyler foundation is still firm. I listen to almost everything, so if you listen closely to my stuff you can hear a little bit of everything too.

What inspired creating “Wherever It Is”?

At the center of “Wherever It Is” is the idea of longing for someone's time. Just saying "I don't care where we go, we'll vibe and be good regardless, if we're together". It plays out like a love song, and to me, it's meant to be played driving down a long road during a sunset. Or something like that.

The Guitar on the track is absolutely beautiful. Did you produce the track? How long have you been producing for?

I did produce it, and honestly it all came together really quickly. From the verses to the solos and then the kind-of bossa nova-influenced bridge, the whole process was a really natural day in my room, and what we got out of it is….well, Wherever It Is.

I started producing when I was either 13 or 14, so about two or three years ago, and that was pretty close to the time I started making songs of my own. We started off with the computer speakers as the microphone. We exclusively used loops and sounds from FL Studio’s demo, and we couldn’t even save projects! To go from that to talking about my production now is still a little crazy.

I saw you mentioned someone else was on background vocals? Could you shout them out really quickly?

Yes! My good friend and multihyphenate-extraordinaire MALACH did some background vocals on the pre-hook about a minute and half into the song. I just sent over the song idea I had and then 30 minutes later I had stacks in my inbox. Really natural.

His instagram username @therealmalach

Last year you released Bright Boy a bundle of three tracks, how does “Wherever It Is” differentiate from them?

I think that “Wherever It Is” is different from Bright Boy just based on the intention of the music. Everything is centered in groove, but I think the groove of 'Wherever It Is’ is completely different from Bright Boy’s groove. Bright Boy is supposed to make you dance and feel energized and take on a day to me. Wherever It Is is supposed to be the soundtrack of you maybe recollecting from your day, kicking back. I’ve also never had any song on Bright Boy with that sort of breakbeat drum. Sure, I’ve had real drums on some of Bright Boy’s records, but never something that sounds a bit more hip-hop influenced, even if I wasn’t thinking of it at the time.

Are you heading towards a project?

Yes! I've been building up a couple of songs that I feel really have a consistency to them. A huge part of it now is just shaping them out to be as best as can be.

What would you want your artistry/music to say to the world?

I want for my artistry to say that you can be something that is both distinct, yet incredibly familiar. I’m really influenced by indie stuff, bedroom pop, alternative R&B, and then also the neo-soul that came before me. Even when I do little things in a song, I can always feel like I’m pulling it from something, no matter how small. And all of those little things from different sources mesh together and make me. I don’t feel like I could be duplicate nor am I duplicate, but that I interpret certain styles in a way only I can. Being original while feeling familiar is something I think about a lot, so I would want people to take that from my artistry.

MiLES. ia a multi-faceted artist from Atlanta that brings his own production, engineering, and creative direction to the table. His art direction takes one of ever engulfing nostalgia, a fall-leaves color palette and a sprinkle of tranquility.

“Wherever It Is” is a breath of fresh air to the saturated Indie R&B and Indie music genres. Can’t wait to see what is in store for MiLES.

If MiLES. has only just hit your radar, you should be excited to catch the train early because I can guarantee that it won’t be long until MiLES. blows up.

Listen to the track for yourself down below.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5TuAgna1c8jWDCzPQNrGa7?si=8a453438d74d4ef5

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/wherever-it-is-single/1568309939

Follow MiLES. : www.instagram.com/whereismiles_