Ink
19
Mira
reviewed
by Dave Aftandilian
Mira is the
kind of debut CD that makes me hope like hell there's a follow-up
coming from the band very soon. Unlike most of Projekt's roster,
Tallahassee-based Mira doesn't fit in the gothic ambient mold, although
you can maybe hear some of labelmate Love Spirals Downwards in Mira's
fuzzed-out guitars paired with gorgeous female vocals (the much-lamented
Moon Seven Times might be another fair point of comparison). Current
critical pigeonholing would probably slide Mira into the "shoegazer"
box, but that just doesn't capture the raw emotional power of the
album to suck you in and spit you out staggering in wonder at the
end.
Whatever you
want to call Mira's music, it's breathtaking. Take "Cayman,"
for instance, which starts with solo bass, then kicks in shimmering
guitars, drums, and Regina Sosinski's paradoxical voice, sometimes
small and vulnerable, sometimes confident and defiant, but always
lovely. The song builds up a wall of fuzzed-out guitar and pounding
drums, knocks it all down to a gentle strumming, then throws it
back up again, just one example of the awesome range and control
of dynamics that runs throughout the album.
My favorite
track, though, is "Real," a breakup song that kicks the
usual wounded mopiness in the ass, focusing instead on the frustrating
mix of anger/pain/sadness/confusion that all too often marks the
end of something that might once have been beautiful, or might have
been shit from the start. Quick-strummed nervous guitar with dark
undertones of bass sliding underneath becomes a seething sea of
sound, heavy waves of distorted guitar and drums alternating with
gentle picking and strumming, slowly receding till only the solo
lonely voice is left, repeating a mantra of love and loss, then
nothing, nothing at all.
Projekt/Darkwave,
P.O. Box 166155, Chicago, IL 60616; http://www.projekt.com
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