Mei Semones enters the Zoom call at 9 a.m., sporting an oversized, blush pink hoodie as she greets me with a soft, raspy voice. She is spread out on a black couch in a rural Connecticut farmhouse belonging to The Brazen Youth, an indie-folk band she is close friends with. Although she is primarily a solo artist, Semones is serving as a guitarist on tour for the band, who is opening for the Florida-based indie-rock band Flipturn.

Music has always been an important aspect of the 22-year-old’s life. At the age of four, she began taking piano lessons after her grandmother bought her a piano. It wasn’t until she was 11 that she decided to make the switch to learning guitar after watching the movie Back to the Future.

“The scene where Marty plays the Chuck Berry song, I was like ‘That’s so sick.’ It’s kind of a weird inspiration, and I never learned that song, but it was my first inspiration,” she says.

Semones, who is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, describes it as a “cute town,” and enjoyed her time growing up there. Her love for music was only strengthened when she became part of Community High School’s acclaimed jazz program. Although there wasn’t a specific moment she decided to pursue music as a career, by her junior year of high school, she realized there were no other career paths that called out to her.

“It’s interesting how some of the people I felt were the best decided to not pursue music. And then people like me who I feel like were fine, but maybe weren’t the best ever, decided to go for it,” she says.

Semones went on to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she released her first single, “Hfoas,” in 2020. The soothing track, which has racked up over 300,000 Spotify streams, established a unique sound combining alternative J-pop and mellow jazz elements. She credits much of her musical style and growth to the jazz performance classes and overall connections she made while at Berklee.

“[Hfoas] was recorded with my friend Noah [Leong], who plays viola, and he did all the string arrangements and everything. I still work with him now, and he introduced me to a cellist and all these people who have been really important to my sound,” she says.

A defining characteristic of Semones’ music is her incorporation of both Japanese and English lyrics. She says the inclusion of Japanese lyrics is crucial in connecting to the language in a creative outlet. She chooses which parts of the song are spoken in Japanese or English based on the message she wants to portray in her music and what feels natural to her.

“If I start writing a song that I’m trying to come up with lyrics in Japanese or something, and I’m like, ‘This is not working,’ I’ll just switch to English and that normally helps me get past that hump,” she says.

Since graduating from Berklee, Semones has moved to New York, which she enjoys more than Boston due to the wide variety of music venues she can play at. Her first show in New York occurred in September, where she was the opening act for singer, Strawberry Guy at the LPR venue.

“Everybody was so supportive, and it was my first show at such a big venue. I had a great experience,” she says.

In October, Semones released two singles: “Okashi” and “Shinju.” She wrote both of these songs during her last semester at Berklee this year and says they represent the end of her college chapter.

Integrating shimmery guitar and dreamy strings, “Okashi” begins as a gentle song that discusses the sweet aspects of falling in love with a specific person. However, halfway through the song, it turns into a resentful story about a different person that reflects the reality Semones was facing at the time. She sings, “You don’t wanna hear me scream/I won’t let you get to me/You are just a fool to me.”

“Okashi” is also accompanied by a music video that brings the bittersweet lyrics to life. “It was fun walking around in Chinatown with my whole outfit on and people were looking at me like I was doing something cool, which I guess I was, but it wasn’t anything crazy,” she says while chuckling.

The jazz and bossa nova-inspired track “Shinju” similarly starts as an ode to one of Semones’ best friends at the time, but speculates that there must be a catch to this seemingly blissful connection. Funny enough, the song foreshadowed the end of their friendship that occurred shortly after she wrote it.

Both singles were recorded in July with music engineer Kai Tsao, whom she met while signed to Northeastern’s non-profit music label, Green Line Records. Since Tsao had limited time in Boston before moving to New York, they quickly produced the tracks within the span of four days. They then dedicated another month to revisions where they sat and listened to the songs together on different types of speakers.

“As an engineer, you have to be tapped into their artistic process, while also being mindful of all the technical things you’re doing, so being close with someone you’re working with is important,” Tsao says. “Her music is super unique on so many levels, and it’s easy to connect with it even if you don’t understand it.”

In the upcoming months, you can catch Semones playing a few shows in New York, as well as a potential Boston show in November.

Mei Semones Discusses New Singles, Life After Berklee, Marty McFly, and More