On the heels of the release of her fifth studio album Laurel Hell, Mitski stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where she performed “Stay Soft.”
During her performance, she dons a draping white gown, and dances to the grooves of the bass guitars and drums. Mitski’s body is a vessel of emotion as her arms outstretch in line with the lyrics, “Open up your heart, like the gates of Hell.”
Her performance is perhaps as eerie as the song’s actual music video, in which she “gives blood to a greedy Venus flytrap, gets kidnapped, and dances under the moonlight with her captors. She eventually gets free, but at a price.”
Mitski is set to play a few festivals this year, including Day In Day Out and Primavera Sound Los Angeles. She will also appear on the Everything Everywhere All At Once soundtrack, set for release this April.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mitski explained that the album’s title is inspired by a Southern Appalachian term for “the thickets that grow so dense and twisty.”
“They’re supposed to be hells that you can’t get out of,” Mitski continued “…I like the notion of being trapped inside this maze and possibly dying within it, but also being surrounded by these beautiful, explosive flowers.”
Check out Mitski’s performance above.