Mimi Barks: “I already wasted half my life destroying myself. There’s not much time left”

“I find beauty in the obscene. I don't think it's horrible.”

Mimi Barks has just shown Kerrang! the images for the inner sleeve of her new album. A collection of close-ups of mouths, blood, various medical-looking stuff and giblet-y bits that probably feel sharp pain under the slightest of pressure, it’s the sort of thing Instagram wouldn’t like. Eager to hear our opinion, and grinning expectantly in her usual Devil’s-jester way, we reply that we approve. It is, we say, fantastically grotesque. Horrible, we tell her.

“It’s not horrible,” she says again. “I think it's beautiful. It resembles the music. It’s 100 per cent me.”

The album of which she speaks is THIS IS DOOM TRAP, the definitively-titled debut full-length from the London-based German ghoul. Where 2022’s astonishing, 5/5-rated DEADGIRL mixtape announced Mimi as one of the most exciting, intriguing and – let’s face it – out-there new artists around, and saw her nab her first K! cover, as well as slots at Download, Bloodstock and others, here everything feels even more like a window into Mimi’s mind.

It’s bold, defiant, confident. It’s lairy in its loud noises and insistent, ballsy beats. It’s also, she says, a document of fragility, almost vomited out of herself during intense writing sessions, after which she says she often feels like she’s not sure if she has another song in her.

There are fiery collabs with industrial-rap terrors Ho99o9 (MONTANA, which sees her speedily rapping in German) and fellow goth conjurer Raven Gray (the furious WORMGIRL). There's a dark sense of humour, and genuine darkness (MIRTAZAPINE, named after a powerful anti-depressant). Undeniably, it’s absolutely brilliant. Fittingly, next to the carrion of the sleeve is the word "Catharsis". You can decide whether it’s horrible or beautiful.

“This album is 100 per cent me,” she says. “The sound, the visuals, the lyrics, the look, the aesthetic, everything finally came home. I still relate to it, and I didn't have that with previous records, where you move on and you redevelop yourself. It represents, 100 per cent, who I am as an artist.”

Mimi Barks certainly looks like an artist, one who would make the sort of music and use the sort of visuals she does. Today, we meet in London’s St James’ Park as the final gasp of summer languishes over nearby Buckingham Palace. As usual, even for late afternoon, outdoors in the sun, she looks like midnight; all leather, chains, small outfits, big tattoos, unsettling contacts, piercings, spiky jewellery, metal teeth and, today, harlequin eye make-up. When we remark her hair is on about its 20th new style this year, she shrugs. “You gotta find new things.”

Although with a very German directness she dismisses the suggestion of picking through the individual songs on THIS IS DOOM TRAP – “I don’t like explaining my art. Art should speak for itself” – as ever, she still has an awful lot to say.

Talking about her music and everything around it as an impulse, something she has to follow, even if it leads her to situations in life that would cause other people to rethink their priorities. “Trust the process,” she’s often told us of how her path unfolds, even if that path is one of unsure ground under your feet when it comes to money, or living situations, or knowing what’s coming up in the next small bit of time.

Part of how she feels about THIS IS DOOM TRAP in relation to previous work is that, having put that out and seen what happens next, she understands herself and her art even more. Around the release of DEADGIRL, Mimi talked about that album as a diary of death and resurrection, her as a dead girl severing from a previous life and moving forward, reborn as her own god. Now, she’s realised, it’s not quite like that.

“I'm laying open self-destruct and existential fears. That's what this album is,” she says. “On DEADGIRL, the last tracks I wrote, like SUICIDE, I thought that I’d reached a point where I found myself. I had this glimpse of awakening. I had my spirit talking to me at some point, and I had the feeling that I’m in control of my mind. But I realised that that's definitely not the case. I still have a long process in front of me.

“I guess the whole album is a fight between The Devil on the right shoulder, and The Angel Of Death on the left.”

THIS IS DOOM TRAP was originally pencilled to be titled FINAL DESTINATION/DEATH WITHOUT SATISFACTION, after the track of the same name. Its lyrics find Mimi imagining an ending, reflecting a cycle of death and resurrection without managing to ascend.

“The whole album goes through anxiety, then self-healing, then back to anxiety, then divides between my messed-up, tainted mind versus my higher self that tries to bring me into consciousness, back to anxiety, and back to realising that my time is running out, and I'm always being thrown back into the abyss no matter what I do. No matter how hard I work on myself, it’s always there. That ultimately leads me to believe that the final destination is just death without satisfaction.

“I'm gonna be doomed until I die. But at least I’ve found a way to compensate through writing.”

And the way Mimi writes is very Mimi. She doesn’t sit down to make a record. She gets an idea in her head, begins scratching away at it “in my shitty studio with no windows, writing away all day in my little cave without daylight”. She doesn’t stop ’til she’s done, so as not to break the spell, and she never creates anything she doesn’t use. Her songs are a photo of a very particular time.

“I never write an album,” she says. “I never have a concept. When I go to the studio, it's usually the result of some sort of emotion or despair or anger. Whenever I write a song, the next day I'm like, ‘Oh, I can never create again. This was it. I can never write another song.’ Then the pressure builds up to a point where I'm getting so angry with myself that I go to the studio and I almost puke that song out. I never sit down and go, ‘I’m gonna write about this topic.’ That's not how it works. It just pops into my brain.

“Every time I wrote a song I’m in this flow state, and it's almost like I'm high. The whole fucking thing is just rushing past. I have no fucking clue what time it is, what day, or how long I've been in the studio for. I forget to eat. I just sit there writing.

“When it’s done, when I remove myself from it, I became a different person the next day. So, when I come out of it, I'm exhausted, and that's the only moment in my life when I'm actually fulfilled. Sometimes there's long breaks between gathering that strength again. Sometimes I wish I could go in and, like, write one song after the other. But I want the energy to flow and not to force anything. I want the music to come to me.”

This is all reflective of Mimi herself. There is, she says, no other, normal Mimi, no off-day version, and you believe her. Certainly, we’ve never seen it. Talking to her about her music, there’s an all-consuming intensity. No off switch.

“I don't differentiate between me as a private person, and me as a musician. It's one and the same thing. It’s everything I do,” she says. “I don't do anything else, and therefore, I don't really have to get into a weird mindset when I play live.”

Her independence as an artist and often having to push things into fruition can sometimes make things a drag. But she’ll also tell you that if she visualises something, she’ll find herself naturally gravitating towards making it happen anyway.

“There are certain boundaries when it comes to the budget, but not to my mind,” Mimi explains. “You need to create your reality with your own thoughts. I try to bring the unimaginable into reality for myself.”

Mimi points to the snake-tastic video for 10 Steps Back from DEADGIRL to illustrate her point. She knew what she wanted. She was told it couldn’t happen, too hard. And yet, here we are.

“I got told: ‘No, stop it. You will never organise snakes,’” she recalls. “But I was like, ‘I want a snake pit.’ And then I manifest, like, fucking 13 snakes, somebody drives them down to London to work with me on the music video because they believe in the vision.

“If I listened to other people telling me I couldn’t do it, or that I’m not that artist yet, or on the right level, then I wouldn't be here today. So many people give up because of the music industry being so discouraging sometimes. All the time people go: ‘It's not possible.’ Well, I'll show you it's possible.”

THIS IS DOOM TRAP may find Mimi Barks in a different place than she thought she might after the purging of DEADGIRL. But it also finds her firmly in control of who she is and what she wants, running toward her ambitions with a bloodymindedness that you can hear and see. It’s also one of the best things you’ll hear in 2024.

In part – aside from it being the sound of a genuinely talented and creatively fecund artist exploring themselves to great ends – this is because of the urgent rawness and impulsive, unapologetic, naked expression that’s gone into it. If not for this, it wouldn’t be the same. And Mimi Barks wouldn’t be Mimi Barks.

“Life is short, and it's a constant battle,” she says as she wanders past the park’s lake and off into the darkening night. “I'm running out of time. I already wasted half my life destroying myself, so there's not much left. You want to shut your mind off, get rid of your pain body. Be more intuitive, and don't listen to that small voice in the back of your head telling you that you can’t do something.

“Fuck that,” she laughs. “If I set my mind to something, I’m gonna get it eventually.”

THIS IS DOOM TRAP is out now via Silent Cult. Mimi Barks tours the UK from October 8

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