REVIEW BY IAN HRABE
Olympia, Washington's Mirah is my favorite female vocalist, and I am constantly surprised that she has somehow managed to stay out of the mainstream. Especially when so many artists wearing an "indie" tag are being commodified.
Yet I still find it strange that she can barely draw 50 people to the Jackpot Music Hall on a Saturday night. Perhaps it was for the best. Each and everybody in attendance was loyal and respectful, making made for one of the best audiences I've been a part of in a long while.
Despite the hushed tones of Mirah's delicately arranged indie-pop songs, the only chatter to be heard was people saying, Oh my God, I love this song, plus the faint murmur of audience members singing along. It was an intimate affair, adhering to the DIY aesthetic K Records is known for, which only served to show why Mirah is pretty much the best thing K has going these days.
There's something very comforting about attending a show where nothing can go wrong and your expectations will not only be met but exceeded. There was no way this could have been a bad show. Mirah could have played an hour of Phil Collins covers, and it would have been great.
Mirah's songs have a versatility that adapt to any sort of environment, and whether she's playing solo or with a backing band, they're consistently excellent. Saturday night, she played with ex-Decemberist Rachel Blumberg on drums, Christopher Doulgeris on keys and occasionally clarinet, and Lisa Molinaro alternating between viola and violin, with occasional help from various members of openers Norfolk & Western (for whom Blumberg also drums).
The group not only managed to harness the warmth of Phil Elverum's analog-only production on the records -- as on the excellent rendition of Advisory Committee's apocalyptic standout, "Mt. St Helens" -- but to completely rearrange certain tunes, as with "Jerusalem," which abandoned the groovy drumbeat and found Blumberg playing a ukulele instead.
Live, there was a certain levity added to the songs from her most recent release, (a)spera; it spiced up the songs, which came off as a little bland on the recording. "Generosity" was carried by a Kate Bush synthesizer and sold by the four-part harmony on the refrain. (Granted, four-part harmony tends to make anything better.)
During C'mon Miracle's "We're Both So Sorry," it was as if everyone in the room was on the same psychic wavelength. The first two minutes played out as they did on the record, with Mirah quietly picking notes on the guitar and singing a sad, lullaby-like apology. Yet where the padded drum machine kicks in on the recorded version, the band let loose, and Mirah sang with an intensity I'd never head before. It was as if she had a whole rock band hidden in her throat that lay dormant until that one point, where she transformed from soft-spoken girl-next-door to a sort of indie-rock diva. Throughout the song, I saw an enraptured girl collapse into her friend's arms, and amid the applause I heard at least three different people say "holy shit."
The evening wrapped with a completely insane (if only for being totally unexpected) disco version of (a)spera's sparest song, "Gone are the Days." Somehow, this worked incredibly well and not knowing how to make any sense of it everybody started dancing. Yet given the diversity of the set, it wasn't that out of place.
The set shapeshifted without ever sacrificing cohesion. From the Latin influences of "The Dogs of B.A." to the Eastern European folk vibe of "Country of the Future" to the airy, harmony-laden pop of "While We Have the Sun," everything felt naturally woven together.
Like a great auteur, Mirah has carved out a niche in the singer-songwriter world that is wholly her own. Though that niche is comprised of a wide range of styles and influences, it's her willingness to experiment with sounds and her heartbreakingly honest lyrics that set her apart from the rest.
Set List
Bones & Skin
Gone are the Days
Education
Mt. St. Helens
You've Gone Away Enough
Jerusalem
The World is Falling
The Dogs of B.A.
Nola
Generosity
We're Both So Sorry
The Forest
Country of the Future
While We Have the Sun
Gone are the Days (disco version)
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