Mirah - (a)spera
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Mirah is an indie singer-songwriter from Portland, Oregon and her page on Last.fm states that she is: “modest and deliberate, preferring privacy to invasion and reconciliation to war.” What is that supposed to mean? It’s like saying “she prefers not being stabbed to being stabbed and driving without traffic to horrific car crashes.” This info was undoubtedly copied from her bio on the Southern Records website that prefaces the above with, “Known by herself and her friends to be mostly gay!, Mirah is…" which prompts curiosity about its exclamation point…is it purely for emphasis or does this imply a flamboyant quality? Her Wikipedia page also mentions that she’s Jewish as a side note. And what do these random facts really have to do with her music? (Nothing, really…I’ve apparently gone off-topic.)
Since her last full-length album (2004’s C’mon Miracle) Mirah has been involved with a few musical projects: a collection of her unreleased and out-of-print material, a collaboration with a couple other musicians (on songs about insects) and a remix album, but anyone familiar with the artist has been waiting for her to release another solo album. Now, after only four years, that wait is over. (Italics = sarcasm.) Four years is the same amount of time between the first 12” that she ever put out and the first really good material that she recorded. (Italics = sincerity.)
Each successive release from Mirah is better than the one before it – Advisory Committee is (quite a bit) better than You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This and C'mon Miracle is better than Advisory Committee – and this trend continues with (a)spera. As time passes, Mirah not only gets better at crafting songs, but the production on her albums improves as well. The only two songs that fall short are "Shells" and "The River," but to offset those lesser tracks she gives us three exceptional songs, "The World Is Falling," "Country of the Future" and "The Forest.”
- Score
- 80%
(a)spera was definitely worth the wait and Mirah has produced some of her finest music to date…hopefully the next album will not take so long.
