Mila Ost hits harder than her records
The drummer behind three of this year’s best albums talks about practice pads, small rooms and why she never uses a click.
Mila Ost practises in a rehearsal room under a railway bridge. Every eleven minutes a train passes overhead and she plays along with it.
On record she is precise to the point of severity. Live, she is something else: louder, looser, grinning at the bass player when a song goes somewhere nobody planned.
A click track keeps you honest, but it also keeps you polite. I don’t want to be polite.
“A click track keeps you honest,” she says, “but it also keeps you polite. I don’t want to be polite.”
Her first solo record, built entirely from drum takes processed through an old tape echo, is due in the spring.
