Mi And L'au; Or, Michael Gira Jumps The Shark

We have recently finished recording an album by Mi and L'au here in Brooklyn. I co-produced it with them. It turned out very lovely indeed. It was a privilege to work with such talented, sincere, and intensely focused individuals. They have a quite passion that is expressed both in the way they are as human beings and in their songs. The music is austere, but simultaneously warm. Picture a glacier with a red ember glowing in its center. Mi and L'au met in Paris a few years back. Mi is Finnish and was working as a model to make ends meet and L'au (who's French) was working in the music industry (soundtracks, I think). They fell deeply and immediately in love, and after a short period of moving from apartment to apartment in Paris, they gave everything up and decided to move to the woods in Finland, so they could be alone together in peace and to spend their time discovering each other and their music. They live in a small cabin in complete isolation with the barest of essentials and they spend virtually all their time making music together in solitude. They are pure and gentle souls (Devendra's song, from Oh Me Oh MY... "Gentle Soul" was written for L'au ­ the two had met in Paris when Devendra was wandering there, and L'au took him in, and they also made music together). Their music is bare, delicate, and made with simple instrumentation - voice, acoustic guitars, and other very sparse orchestrations. I wouldn't say it compares at all to the current crop of neo-hippy "weird folk" etc. though. It has the naked quality of certain early Nico recordings, or Chet Baker (I don't mean there's a stylistic similarity by any means - just a sense of space)...soulful and elegant, without being touchy-feely or confessional. Their music reminds me of how one might imagine a winter Finnish landscape - haunting and pure.

These recordings were made with love in Mi and L'au's cabin in Finland and then overdubs were made in the wilds of Brooklyn by themselves as well as the ubiquitous Akron/Family, Julia Kent (Antony and the Johnsons), Paul Cantelon, Jerome O'Brien and others. Overdubs were made at Seizure's Palace (Angels of Light. Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family) and mixed at Trout recording by Bryce Goggin (Phish. Pavement, Lemonheads, Angels of Light, Akron/Family etc.).

THANKS! - Michael Gira/Young God Records/Angels of Light etc…