Here's new adventures in the enigmatic music of Mia Riddle.
Not sounding like anyone else I'm aware of, Mia has a unique tension going on in her music, the fragility of her voice and the delicate precision of her lyrics being tugged taut by the steely drive of her band. The music is frequently sparse, but there's no mistaking the firm beats from the drums and the understated but determined drive from guitar, banjo or piano as the melody is picked out.
There's not much in the way of sustained notes or big production number to make a warm bath of sound that might contrast with Mia's cool, slightly detached vocal style. This being a continuation of the style evident on Tigers, her previous full-length cd, I guess she must be happy with the sound she's producing but it feels to me that there's some bits waiting to fall into place. Only occasionally does the listener feel invited into the song - no hummable choruses, no big warm tunes; what compels, though, is the sense of serious artistic intelligence at work searching for new ways of expression within the very traditional guitar, drums, voice format.
Mia's poetic way with words explores episodes and incidents in life - usually specifically enough to understand what she's writing about and yet obliquely enough to leave room for our imaginations. The most succinct lyric here is married to the most delicate arrangement: Sneak takes a snapshot as a teenager slips out of bed, past her parents still awake downstairs, to meet an unspecified friend across the street under a tree. There's no sense of excitement or liberation here, only a kind of downbeat tension that I can't identify with at all - she has a most individual vision, Ms Riddle.
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Elsewhere there is considerable aggression from the band, certainly enough contrast in one set of songs to sustain our interest. Odd man out is (The Great State of) Texas, a paean to the one thing Texas has given her; "this sweet native son, this tall dark handsome one". All but acapella, church hall style with handclaps and foot stomps, and including a little riff on Amazing Grace this waltz time tune sounds very down from the mountain and very unlike everything else here.
She gets curiouser and curiouser, does Mia Riddle and is quite likely to get under your skin with her most distinctive approach.
(John Davy www.nessmp3.com/music/bicuitsandgravy)
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