Written and produced over three years beginning in April 2020, the eleven effervescent songs of the new Resavoir feature a vibrant cast of collaborators from the Chicago music community, including Akenya, Matt Gold, Eddie Burns, Lane Beckstrom, Jeremy Cunningham, Irvin Pierce, Macie Stewart, Peter Manheim, Elton Aura, Whitney (indie band that Miller has been a regular member of since 2016) and more.
The core songs of Resavoir are ear-pleasing but deeply-layered studio constructions, demonstrating the astute production-craft that Miller’s sharpened over recent work with Knox Fortune and SZA (on top of his already-lengthy resume that includes work with Mac Miller, Chance the Rapper, Saba and Lil Wayne). Other pieces were built from free, group improvisations recorded in the empty lot next to Miller’s Humboldt Park apartment during the pandemic. And others are delightfully fleeting vignettes, compositionally elegant but only slightly more polished than demos, reflecting his intent on capturing the moment of discovery and embracing what gives music its vulnerable, human qualities. All together, the new Resavoir corralls a broad diversity of sound, inter-weaving modern-day soul-jazz, bedroom beats, synth serenades and twilight sonatas into a subtly radiant symphony.
The album’s lead single “Sunday Morning” draws inspiration from a rainbow peaking through the clouds on a misty May afternoon, when Miller was tinkering with the jazz standard “Here’s That Rainy Day.” But “Sunday Morning” is far from it – stylistically it’s much more buttery indie R&B than classic jazz ballad, and leans much less on Miller’s trumpet than it does on Elton Aura’s sumptuous vocals and verses. Miller recalls: “I had wanted to work with Elton for a while so I invited him over to the studio. I was playing him a few different things before landing on this one, which I sort of knew he would want to write to right away. He wrote and recorded his verse that day.” The track culminates with a dreamy outro section featuring Miller’s longtime bandmates from Whitney. Miller adds: “Literally the day after I had Elton at the studio, Julien (from Whitney) sent me a voice memo of himself humming a melody over the exact same song… even though it had been over a year since I shared it with him. To me that was too crazy of a coincidence to overlook, so I invited Max and Julien over to finish writing to that melody, and the three of us crafted the outro section together.”
“Sunday Morning” also comes with an incredible stop motion video by Nik Arthur. About his work, Arthur says: “A water droplet mimics the movements of hard working hydrangea pollinators. Each droplet was placed carefully with a syringe and a lot of patience.”
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