Mirah reviewed
Mirah
Share This Place: Stories And Observations
(K)
Mirah Zeitlyn remains traditional on her fifth album, in that she’s still with Calvin Johnson’s K Records and lists close-friend Phil Elverum in the liners. Yet her choice to go deep underground could startle even her closest Olympia-scene compatriots.
Appearing: July 17th at Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago.
“140 million years we’ve been this way,” she sings on the opening “Community.” She’s not referring to people, of course, but insects. Share This Place: Stories And Observations entirely concerns a world both subterraneous and in the sky, miniscule and vast. Staying away from National Geographic, however, Mirah’s world is largely human (thus unmistakably metaphorical) and filled with love and envy.
Incredibly, bugs are only half the story of Share This Place. Adding a decidedly cartoonish, Pixar-bred feel is an ad hoc band called Spectratone International, comprising members of Black Cat Orchestra as well as Elverum and producer Steve Fisk. Eastern European/Balkan tones via accordion and oud not only give Mirah a chance to play Regina Spektor with her voice, but proscribe idiosyncrasies to her undersized protagonists — a gift most songwriters don’t bother to give their more bipedal characters.
— Steve Forstneger
