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Mia Doi Todd: The Golden State

By Robert Morris

Pop is changing, and while the new rockers like The Vines, The White Stripes, and most notably, The Strokes, have reinvigorated rock music, the far left of popular mainstream has gotten a bit shallow.

The New Folk movement had been started sometime before by such artists as Beth Orton and, at least in a rhetorical sense, Sarah McLachlan and we're moving towards a realization of this form that may be pop music’s savior. Mia Doi Todd's most recent album, The Golden State, may not be the commercial catalyst that New Folk needs and it's certainly not the idyllic Folk and archetypical Pop album that Bob Dylan's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but it does take steps in the right direction.

The music casts a soft spell after a somewhat rocky beginning. An album of mostly reworked and revisited songs from three earlier albums (The Ewe and the Eye, Zeroone and the critically acclaimed, Come Out of Your Mine), this could justifiably fall into the category of a sort of greatest hits for an artist who hasn't had any. The Golden State is my introduction to Todd and I think it has been a good one. This is also her major label debut, so I doubt that I will be the only one introduced to Todd by it.

Her lyrics are flowing and sometimes a bit clichéd, but her fairly unique sound makes the lyrics easy to ignore. That's one of the most important things about Todd: that she sounds so little so often like anyone else. At points, she calls to mind Beth Orton's silent siren qualities, but by and large Todd is entirely unique. She flawlessly vacillates between the gently political 'Independence Day' to the folk pop song 'Autumn' that fits in almost because of its more mainstream feel as opposed to because of it. New Folk is a burgeoning genre and it's one in which Todd moves so comfortably in songs like 'Like a Knife,' and the simply sublime, 'Poppy Fields.' Her voice alone, let alone her musicality, is the most striking thing about this recording. It seems almost uncomfortably exotic while being eerily familiar.

Her influences are nearly as mysterious as her voice. At points it simultaneously recalls Japanese traditional music and the typical melodic influence of early twentieth century classical composers. If there is a definable pop music influence in her music outside of the obvious Bob Dylan and Beatles, it's one that is either unknown or imaginary. The Golden State floats above your head like an apparition and vanishes with your slightest movement, only for you to discover that it has been in front of you, gently conversing, all along. The first two tracks do take sincerely away, with somewhat condescending lyrics and unconvincing emotion, and her lyrics do have a tendency to gravitate towards the clichéd when they're not being almost preternatural in their musical meaning. I do regret that there are only three new tracks on this album, but all in all, I doubt I could ask for a better introduction to Mia Doi Todd than this.