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In her nearly 20-year career, Mirah’s latest album was one of the toughest to write. In the five years since her previous release, she broke up with her long-time girlfriend and uprooted from long-time home Portland for New York. This period of transition is reflected on Changing Light, on which Mirah experiments with new sounds and effects, partially thanks to tUnE-yArDs co-producer Eli Crews.
Mirah has dubbed this her breakup record, and it goes through the phases of a relationship’s end: sadness, anger, confusion, forgiveness. Satiny ballad Turned The Heat Off is rife with sultry strings, Fleetfoot Ghost is just a squeaky guitar and winsome vocals, and the album highlight, slow burner Oxen Hope, uses vintage synths and vocoder to chilling effect.
While clearly her most varied album to date, it still sounds decidedly Mirah: DIY folk singer/songwriter of the 90s with that heartbreaking voice and a knack for killer guitar melodies.
Top track: Oxen Hope
