Kevin Bronson on November 16th, 2015

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Miya Folick is an old soul with a cherub’s voice. Her new EP, “Strange Darling” (released to Bandcamp in truncated form in May, now expanded to six songs) comes out this week, and it’s a tour de force, rich in musicality and intellectual heft. Her background is this: The Santa Ana native was reared in a Buddhist family (some of her songs put the “chant” in chanteuse), studied classical music, spent some time in New York City, moved back to the West Coast and taught herself to play guitar. Her voice ranges from the woozy coo of Mazzy Star to the quaver of Natalie Merchant, with the lyrical bite of PJ Harvey, weaving (or doubled) over delicate-then-rumbling guitars and mournful synths.

Folick’s songs are confessionals, yes, but the likes of which you’d generally hear from somebody beyond her years. The post-punk urgency of “I Got Drunk” finds her at most dynamic, while admitting, almost with a shrug, “Guess I’ll write you a love song / ’cause I got drunk and told you how I feel …” In the lead track “Talking With Strangers,” she grapples with not just learning to love but “learning to let myself be loved.” More love lessons emerge in “What I Have To”: “”I drank the Kool-Aid / I thought it would make me cool enough for your taste,” she spits out over a low rumble and tambourine. And her ethereal side shines on “I Think This Is the Dream Where I Met You,” an orchestrated acoustic meditation in which she conjures up this image: “Now you’re making a 3D facsimile / I’m sitting on a chair / and you circle, you circle around me.” The EP, made with producer/engineer Mark Rains, is one of the best to come out of these parts this year. Don’t be distracted by Folick’s pixie-ish charm; she may be one of those seers who knows all eventual outcomes.

||| Stream: “I Got Drunk,” “Oceans,” “Strange Darling” and “Talking With Strangers”

||| Live: Miya Folick plays the Bootleg Theater on Dec. 3, along with Lena Fayre and Alyeska.