Alt-pop agitator girli describes her upcoming album ‘Matriarchy’ as her most “reflective” and “vulnerable” body of work yet. “I chose to use it as the album title because that word means so many things to me. The matriarchy of being a queer woman in love with another, the matriarchy of being my own queen who governs my life (or queendom), and a commentary on taking back power” says the musician also known as Milly Toomey. This personal growth has coincided with an evolution in how girli approaches her artistry. When she broke through seven years ago with edgy electro gems like ‘Girls Get Angry Too’, she relished being combative. “Initially I was pissed off about a lot of things and I just wanted to get them out,” she says. “But now, writing songs is like therapy for me – it’s about processing things I’ve gone through and how they shaped me as a person.”
Born and raised in north London, girli started out singing in bands, but soon realised she was “too much of a control freak” not to go solo. She adopted her stage name and signature pink hair during this period as a way of “weaponising everything that was being used against me”. Right from the start, girli took pride in being slyly subversive. “The word ‘girly’ has so much stigma attached to it because it’s often used to belittle femininity,” she explains. “I wanted to take that word and turn it into something powerful, and I changed the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ so people would be able to find my music on Google.”
Now, with fans around the world embracing girli’s music as an inspiring and comforting part of their everyday lives, she is ready to enter her most revealing era. Anthemic bangers like ‘Matriarchy’ and ‘Nothing Hurts Like a Girl’ are already highlights of her incendiary live show. “I was definitely an angsty teenager who wanted to shout into the mike and put my middle fingers up to everyone,” she says with a laugh. “But over time, I’ve become more sensitive as a person, which has made my music even more authentic. I still definitely have that feisty side, but I like that I can also be more vulnerable in my music. With this album I’m showing more of myself than ever before, and that’s a really exciting feeling.”