When it comes to genre fusion, Mimi Barks might as well be the poster star. Dubbing her unique musical style “DOOM TRAP,” the German-born artist blends everything from metal, pop, industrial, and electronic music to create a compelling sound that feels entirely her own. With the release of her latest EP, Dreamstate of Fear, Mimi Barks provides a soundtrack of booming 808s, frantic guitar riffs, haunting atmospherics, and eerie vocal melodies that revels in both controlled chaos and cathartic release. In other words, Dreamstate of Fear feels tailor-made for a generation seeking musical refuge in a rather dystopian timeline, and without a doubt, Mimi Barks delivers tenfold.
Having recently relocated to Los Angeles, Mimi Barks has been hitting the road hard, recently wrapping up her first U.S. tour with Little Miss Nasty. She is now set to kick off her UK headline tour this week, running from September 9th through the 18th. The future is looking bright for Mimi Barks, and if her latest EP, Dreamstate of Fear, is any indication of where she is headed next, you’ll want to stay tuned for more!
As an artist who has never been afraid to wear her vast musical influences on her sleeve, we asked Mimi Barks to discuss the artists and albums that have had the most profound impact on her career.
From The Prodigy to Bring Me The Horizon, these are the albums that shaped Mimi Barks’ sound!
The Fat of the Land - The Prodigy
The Prodigy completely reshaped my understanding and the importance of energy in music. Their live presence and delivery are out of this world. Watching footage for the first time of their 1996 Phoenix Festival performance online, especially after being dismissed by parts of the German music industry for being “too extreme,” felt like confirmation that I was already heading in the right direction. “Breathe,” “Firestarter,” or “Diesel Power” showed me that rap, MCing, and heavy beats could coexist.
The Poison - Bullet For My Valentine
When I first heard The Poison, it altered my perception of heavy music. I grew up in a metalcore-oriented town in Germany, but this was different: technical guitar work, brutal screams, and melodic tension existing in the same space. I knew instantly this was a sound I resonated with, something dark, aggressive, and, most importantly, sexy. This album has stayed with me ever since.
The Golden Age Of Grotesque - Marilyn Manson
This record showed me that the ugliness of human existence, vulnerability, and self-destruction could exist alongside beauty and glamour. It felt emotionally raw in a way that most heavy music at the time didn’t. The theatricality and emotional extremity of that era definitely influenced the darker duality that exists in my own work today. It taught me that discomfort can be turned into aesthetic language.
Hotel: Ambient - Moby
This album had a huge impact on my relationship with atmosphere and emotional space in music. It proved that silence and stillness can feel just as heavy as distortion. It feels like floating through abandoned memories. I always return to this record while flying, coming down, or during periods of reset.
HIStory - Michael Jackson
My first-ever cassette as a kid was HIStory. Michael Jackson was the first artist I was genuinely obsessed with. His sense of rhythm, drama, precision, and performance embedded itself in me long before I even understood what artistry really meant. What fascinated me most was how he merged theatre with music on stage. His performances weren’t just concerts, they were cinematic experiences.
Disintegration - The Cure
The Cure has influenced me since I was around sixteen. I first heard songs like “Prayers for Rain” in my then-best friend’s spot during sleepovers after illegal warehouse or bunker parties, shows, and mind-altering conversations. Years later, those same songs took on entirely new meanings during my final days living in London, when I was dealing with intense depression and emotional emptiness. Their music taught me that sadness can become immersive and beautiful without losing its heaviness.
Nevermind - Nirvana
Nevermind made me pick up a guitar at fourteen. Hearing “Something In The Way” was the moment I realised depression could be translated into melody and atmosphere. That realisation changed everything for me. It was probably the first time I understood that music could become an emotional language for things too difficult to explain directly.
The Eminem Show - Eminem
This was the first CD I ever bought. Growing up in Germany, I listened to it daily long before I understood the lyrics, but I could already feel the anger, the obsession, and passion in his voice. Songs like “Cleanin Out My Closet” or “Sing for the Moment” had this bitterness and emotional tension that felt incredibly real to me. That album taught me that authenticity isn’t optional, it’s the foundation of visionary art.
Watching Movies with the Sound Off - Mac Miller
Songs like “Someone Like You” and “Youforia” take me straight back to being a teenager, early substance abuse, and the deep feeling of misplacement I experienced growing up. That record was most present in my life during the period right before I left my hometown and moved to Berlin, a time when everything felt fragile but inevitable.
Sempiternal - Bring Me The Horizon
Sempiternal was one of the first albums that truly blurred the line between the heaviness of metal and atmospheric synth elements for me. Around the time the album came out, I saw them play a tiny 300-cap venue near my hometown in Germany, and from that moment, it felt inevitable that they were going to become massive. The energy in the room, the then-experimental sound in a rigid metal world, and the way the crowd reacted, you could feel that shift happening in real time. I always admired that they did something nobody else had done before, and even though people hated on it at the time, they shut out the noise and kept reinventing themselves as artists again and again.
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