Miki Berenyi Trio - Tripla

A richly layered, imaginative album. It's uniquely slanted strain of dream pop is often a euphoric and sometimes melancholic mix of guitars and electronica, all fronted by Miki’s instantly recognisable vocal, overlaid with an often profound and sometimes abrasive or yearning view of the world.

Miki Berenyi Trio — or MB3 for short — is named after its lead singer, a direct way to convey the presence of the former singer and co-guitarist of Lush, and one of the most instantly recognisable faces of the ’90s. But the songwriting is entirely a three-way collaboration, as the album title Tripla describes. Acknowledging the mother tongue of Miki’s father, Tripla is Hungarian for “triple.”

Miki and Moose, who came of age during the era of shoegaze and Britpop in Lush and the equally beloved Moose respectively, arrived here via Piroshka, the project they formed in 2017 with drummer Justin Welch (Elastica) and bassist Mick Conroy (Modern English). When Mick broke his arm during the tour for Piroshka’s second album Love Drips and Gathers, Oliver — Justin’s bandmate in Aircooled and a solo artist under various aliases including Dollboy and Gilroy Mere — stepped in.

With Mick relocating to America and Justin increasingly busy with The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Pretenders, Piroshka was put on hold. Miki, Moose and Oliver came together to play a handful of Lush songs while promoting her acclaimed memoir Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success. Songwriting followed naturally. “Nothing was planned,” Oliver recalls. “It was more of an organic process.”

Without a drummer, the trio leaned into drum machines, adding more electronic elements. Freed from the logistics of a full band setup, MB3 have played support slots with Gang of Four and The Wedding Present, plus headline dates — including US shows in summer 2024 with Lol Tolhurst x Budgie.