Adam Miller

Adam Miller — the Los Angeles-based musician and visual artist best known for founding Chromatics — announces his new EP, Illusion Pool, out November 10th. Today, he presents two singles: the shimmery dream pop song “Illusion Pool” and “Everybody’s Been Burned,” a stark and cinematic cover of The Byrds’ classic tune. Building upon the foundation of Chromatics and his 2022 instrumental ambient guitar album Gateway, Illusion Pool EP marks the first release in which Miller’s vocals step out into the spotlight.

Gloria Steinem once wrote that “without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.” The fervency of possibilities is palpable on Illusion Pool. The release consolidates all of Miller’s prior art: The Durutti Column and Michael Rother inspired guitar meditations, the presence of another vocalist (Hannah Lew of Cold Beat and Grass Widow), and the use of vocoded vocal treatments in the recording process. But the EP charts another path forward, another possibility: Miller’s voice, unencumbered, and finally on its own.

Produced and recorded by collaborator Mikal Oor and Miller in their home studios and mixed by Daniel Knowles (Sharon Van Etten, Cigarettes After Sex), the EP features The Cure’s Lol Tolhurst playing drums on the title track and “Everybody’s Been Burned.”

“As I was working on Gateway, I had reached a point where I never wanted to write or hear music with vocals or drums ever again, but little by little every time I picked up my guitar, melodies, little bits of songs, and lyrics would keep on revealing themselves to me,” Miller says. He began diving back into his deep library of unfinished material, molding some of it into tracks on Illusion Pool. “It’s been invigorating to revisit these sketches from over the years. In the past, whenever I hit a wall with something, I would usually drop the idea and forget about it, but I’ve loved being able to pick up these ideas from where I left them with a completely different perspective. When I sang on Chromatics songs, I hated my voice. I would endlessly explore ways in which I could mask it behind a fortress of effects. But over the past few years, I’ve finally learned to embrace my natural voice. It’s as if my fear of my voice vanished over the past few years. Now it feels exhilarating to be so exposed.”

Chromatics’ music and aesthetic has notably been used in numerous films, television series, and fashion shows. Among their many career hallmarks, Chromatics toured internationally, were selected by Karl Lagerfeld to perform at the Chanel Spring-Summer 2013 Ready-to-Wear runway show, and made numerous appearances performing on Season 3 of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks. Following 2022’s Gateway, Miller began performing live as a solo artist with his backing band Inner Magic, opening a string of shows for The War On Drugs and Boy Harsher.