Kevin Bronson on January 16th, 2020

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Bold move, Miya Folick.

The Orange County-bred singer-songwriter, who’s been working on the follow-up to her highly regarded 2018 debut “Premonitions,” played a show at the Echo on Wednesday night at which nobody in the sold-out crowd knew any of the songs. In fact, her set — 15 songs in all, including two performed solo to end the night — was staged with a backing band assembled just for this one-off.

“I don’t know if I should tell you not to wait for the song you want to hear tonight,” she said good-naturedly at the start, “because you’re not going to hear it.” In fact, she added, she had debated the whole premise for the show with her mother, who was in attendance and had favored her daughter “playing the hits.”

So, bizarrely, the night ended up being an exercise in workshopping new songs (which currently exist only as demos), albeit to a full house. “I don’t know what songs will be on the record yet — this is kind of a trial run — so this might be the only time you hear some of them,” said Folick, who invited fans to DM her with favorites.

She’s going to have some tough choices to make, because there wasn’t a throwaway in the bunch.

Stylistically, the new material ranged from New Wave-inspired dance-rock, to shoegazey anthems, to updated ’70s folk-rock to a tender acoustic track, “Teach Me,” during which she was accompanied by co-writer Matias Mora. Throughout the evening, Folick paused to share the genesis of or background on the new songs, the audience fairly hanging on her every word. The singer-guitarist is far from the rather reserved performer she was in the era of her “Pet Body” EP; on Wednesday, she gave an effervescent, physical performance. Not even a malfunction in guitarist Sam Stewart’s gear, which caused a restart of the song “Warm” — bowed her spirits.

“Warm,” co-written with Mitski, revealed Folick at full throttle, with vulnerability on high. Like “Lion,” “Sociopath” and “Get Out of My House,” it’s a relationship song, and a memorable one at that. “Lion” is a song “about a bad relationship where I tried to change myself for somebody … which was also the impetus for me to make my first EP,” she said. In it, she sings, “I know you’ve been talking to the girls on the internet” and frets about not being able to measure up.

Folick started the night with the heavy stuff: In “Oh God,” which deals with spirituality and was co-written with Mike Malchicoff, she sings, “I spent all my twenties not believing anything.” She followed up with the equally weighty “2007,” which, she explained, was the last year she felt safe (not coincidentally, the last year she lived with her parents). It’s a sure bet to make the album.

There were a fair share of irresistible party anthems, too, highlighted by “Bad Thing” which sounds like a band taking Fleetwood Mac and running with it, and “Impossible,” a bouncy New Waver.

The city of Los Angeles looms large in many songs — “Teach Me” references “a Wednesday night at the Echo” (of all things),  “Short Stop” a night at the Sunset Boulevard bar. But certainly one of the highlights was “Lucky Doomed Stressed.” “I can’t leave this city / I love its bleached blonde hair,” she sings, noting later, with a wink, “We’re plastic and we live at the beach.”

“A lot of the songs ended up being about L.A.,” she said of the latter song. “I feel lucky because I live here. I doomed because I listen to the news. And I feel stressed because there’s a lot of sensory overload.”

Like the overload Folick’s fans experienced Wednesday in trying to process all her new songs, it’s worth the trouble.

Earlier, with the room so politely quiet you could hear glasses clink, Shannon Lay opened the night with a set of sublime songs, most culled from her 2019 album “August.” Even when the floor started reverberating a bit from the Dub Club show going on downstairs at the Echoplex and the noise from the hand dryers in the nearby ladies room intruded, Lay was unruffled. She was, as Folick later said, an “open channel.” 

Setlist: Oh God, 2007, Nothing, Lion, Impossible, Lucky Doomed Stressed, Warm, Mommy, Teach Me, Sociopath, Bad Thing, Get Out of My House, Short Stop. Solo: Break My Heart, Double Dare.

Photos by Jessica Hanley