Eliza Niemi - Progress Bakery


Vain Mina / Tin Angel

Released on March 21st, 2025

Eliza Niemi is simply a powerhouse in the Canadian music scene since her work in her former band Mauno. Niemi is a talented singer/songwriter and multiinstrumentalist on top of running her own record label, Vain Mina. And after her critically acclaimed and Polaris longlisted debut album Staying Mellow Blows (2022), Eliza Niemi returns with the much-awaited Progress Bakery — an album that also made its way into the Polaris longlist that was just recently announced. 

Progress Bakery was recorded with Louie Short, who co-produced the LP along with Niemi, Jeremy Ray and Lukas Cheung (Mother Tongues, check them out). On top of Niemi’s instrumental work through lush mixes of cello, keys, bass, and guitar, Niemi also enlisted an exciting artists in her music community to help put the album together including: drums by Evan Cartwright (Cola, Jennifer Castle, Andy Shauf); vocals by Dorothea Paas (U.S. Girls, Fucked Up); keys by Kenny Boothby (Little Kid); and percussion by Ed Squires (U.S. Girls), among others.

To get right down to business, “DM BF” is probably my favourite song that exemplifies what Eliza Niemi is up to for me with lush chorus-driven guitars, strings accentuating the grove, keys and flute adorning the ambiance of the track over which Niemi’s calm voice guides you through a playful image about how “Dogman’s [her] (redacted) boyfriend” and how “Beautiful eyes and smells like garbage / [she smells] the beauty in the garbage.” Silly, playful, and romantic captivates the tone of what this record sounds like across the board. The short takes also offer some fun vignettes into Niemi’s songwriting, with cute and silly tracks like “How U Remind Me” that brings about a picturesque contradiction between an idealized beloved held next to the most mundane of things with probably my favourite lyric being: “That little fart sound my chair makes when I sit down to do takes reminds me of you.” In these short tracks, the variety of songwriting shows off in other tracks like “Novelist Sad Face” where the track is purely vocally driven as opposed to the more instrumentally elaborate “I TrieD.”

Other tracks that I am obsessed with include “Melodies Like Mad” which is probably one of the best Eliza Niemi tracks I’ve ever listened to. Worth starting this track through the last 5 seconds of “I TrieD” that transitions into this track through radio filtered xylophone that kicks of into Niemi’s vocals as the instrumental builds up slowly to a groove where this catch xylophone returns into the kind of idyllic indie song you’d walk around town to in a movie like Juno (idk man, there are so many of them, so fill in the blank with whatever gets that vibe for you). Of course, there is also the opening track “Do U FM” which is one of the most delicate takes of an acoustic guitar song that is given a coastal and thoughtful ambiance through the sounds of waves is accompanied by backing flutes. And then there is a more punky song like “Wildcat” which is very energetic through its overdriven stripped down instrumental to guitars, bass, and drums which really is a flex from the layered instrumentation that stands out throughout most of the album.

Overall, Progress Bakery is an incredible sophomore album that shows off the breadth of what Eliza Niemi can do. The songwriting is so finely tuned and diverse that it offers a lot to look out for for all kinds of listeners — fans of things like Big Thief, the softer takes in illuminati hotties, or queer soft punks like Your Heart Breaks would get a big kick out of this album.


Simone Atenea Medina Polo

Bio: Simone Atenea Medina Polo is a philosopher, music producer, and freelance writer based in Edmonton, AB (amiskwacîy-wâskahikan). Known either for her academic publications and clandestine essays in philosophy, Marxism, and psychoanalysis or for her hyperpop / experimental pop project pseudo-antigone, Atenea gets herself into situations and predicaments that enter into dialogue with a variety of niche interests in arts, music, and culture.

https://www.pseudo-antigone.com/
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