Canadian musician Rhye speaks on exploring grief through music
Posted March 25, 2023 12:53 pm.
Last Updated March 25, 2023 5:57 pm.
A Canadian musician says he is exploring the healing power of music after his father passed away from cancer during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Mike Milosh, the Canadian singer-songwriter behind Rhye, says his new four-track EP, Passing, openly explores the universal experience of grief stemming from the loss.
He says that the pandemic made the time surrounding his father’s death and illness additionally difficult, as the family faced various restrictions.
“I was going back and forth from L.A. to Canada, so just to visit my dad, I would have to quarantine for 14 days before I could see him,” he said.
Due to hospital restrictions at the time, Milosh says they weren’t able to gather as a family.
“My mom couldn’t [visit] if I was in town, so I would bump my mom off the visiting list…I didn’t like that at all. I was like, ‘I wish we could all three visit him,” he said.
“COVID made it very stressful.”
Milosh says grief hit him by surprise and he felt alone, but that’s when he decided to start channeling his emotions into what would soon become Passing.
“You’re just kind of left with this massive emptiness, and I started writing that EP because I just was like, I gotta move this through my body. I gotta do something. I gotta do something that gets the feelings unstuck from me,” he said.
“I was having a lot of trouble crying, which also made me feel weird. I was like, ‘why am I not crying?’ Like, ‘what’s wrong with me?'”
“And then I started making this record.”
Milosh says it was important for him to record the EP, adding there aren’t a lot of conversations around grieving in society today.
“I was having a lot of difficulties and I was really frustrated. I was really angry at myself. I fantasized many times about having the ability to help my father, and I couldn’t,” he said.
“I made this music, a collection of songs created for the sole purpose of allowing me to grieve, to get the feelings to run through my body, become unstuck, and come out of me in a way that would help me to allow the good memories back in.”
Milosh explains he was moved to write the songs to help heal after his father’s death.
“Until you go through it, you don’t really understand that losing a parent is truly one of the loneliest experiences you can have. Words, or any intellectual approach, didn’t help me…deal with the passing of my father,” he said.
“Making this record was my process of healing, and — though the pain and loss never leave — we continue.”
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“My language is music, or like the way I deal with things is through music, and I just figured it was important to actually get it out and hopefully someone else can hear it…I hope they feel something beautiful, or I hope they feel something comforting,” he said.
“I hope that it just gives people comfort, and peace, and recognition that we all go through this.”
Milosh says, Passing is the most personal music of his career. He describes the songs as “an achingly beautiful meditation on loss and the power of music as a coping mechanism.”
Rhye will perform live at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on April 1. For those that can’t be in person, there is an option to join virtually with a live stream through Veeps.
It will be a one-time-only performance of the new Passing EP in its entirety – all four tracks: A Quiet Voice, Fearless, Not Dying in Me and Shadow in the Storm.
