Release : Mia Doi Todd - Gea
Artist : Mia Doi Todd
Album : Gea
Genre : Lo-Fi
Source : CDDA
Label : Kindred Spirits
URL :
Date : 03-04-2008
Encoder : LAME 3.97 / -V2 --vbr-new
Quality : 157kbps 44100 kHz Joint Stereo
Tracks : 10
Time : 48:39 min
Size : 54.93 MB
1 River Of Life-The Yes Song 10:49
2 Night Of A Thousand Kisses 4:30
3 Big Bad Wolf & Black Widow Spider 4:26
4 Sleepless Nights 3:21
5 Esperar Es Caro 4:05
6 Kokoro 4:53
7 Can I Borrow You? 3:31
8 Wolf Reprise 3:16
9 In The End 5:24
10 Old World New World 4:24
Mia Doi Todd must win prizes for being a most impenetrable artist, her website
is a single page, the myspace profile seeming to exist upon the bear bones and a
wikipedia entry that barely makes it past ôstubö status. But behind this
mysterious figure lies an album as welcoming as any you will hear this year,
blending gently plucked guitar strings with classically trained vocals and
fusing traditional and eastern songwriting techniques into a warm, affable
record that will draw you into a world of mystery and splendour.
After releasing her first album while graduating form Yale, Gea marks the six
record in ten years for a woman whose career has seen her fluctuate between the
clubs of New York city and the butoh theatres of Japan. Moving away from the big
band and plethora of styles seen in 2005Æs Manzanita, this latest incarnation
sees a return to the guitar and piano ensemble of her early records, albeit with
the variety of an increased strings presence.
River of Life/The Yes Song forms a ten-minute interlude that welcomes the
listener in with sauntering vocals that float across the threshold with almost
inaudible mystic beauty. Beneath, trance like rhythms flutter with an enchanting
simplicity as mantra like lyrics catch the attention like blossom in the breeze.
The result is an effortless and intoxicating track that will have you swaying
and submitting before it fades into nothingness.
Slightly more rousing is Sleepless Nights, a sultry ballad that exudes an
atmosphere of campfire-side stories of loss and longing, leaving behind the
barely perceptible lyrics for what is in danger of resembling a chorus. Yet for
all this adventurism the basic tenets of the tunes remain the same, a sparkling
splendour and captivating, ethereal track.
Fusing flamenco overtones with a foreign language lamentations, Esperar es Caro
stands as an unusual but obvious highlight. Drawing the attention for its sheer
peculiarity, this track demands attention out of admiration and amazement.
Almost indescribably in tits otherworldliness the song serves to make you feel
both at home and out of place, perfectly comfortably and completely baffled at
the same time.
It is not surprising that Gea is at times an unnerving album, at times the
fusion of styles veers towards the unpalatable, too out there for general
consumption, the passions of the eccentric rather than the sounds of the masses.
But what is far more striking is the times it gets things completely right, the
times when an almost organic beauty welcomes you onto another plane of
transcendental tunes. So for those who are looking to escape the holiday season
and plunge into a dreamlike world of mystique, Gea is just the wormhole you
need.