Mirah - Best Kept Secret

Mirah is currently on a hiatus from the music business, and as such has decided that now is the time to release a remix collection, 'Joyride'. Featuring work from producers famed on the queer scene for their uncompromising musical vision, such as Ben Adorable, Electrosexual and Abberline, 'Joyride' puts Mirah's lyrics and voice into new contexts. The singer-songwriter baggage is jettisoned, and the listener is invited for the first time to focus on the rhythmic qualities of her compositions, and the surprising gravitas in her sweet, appealing voice.

Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlin had an interesting upbringing that would take this whole article to re-count, including time spent in hippie communes in West Virginia with her Jewish parents, going on peace marches in Russia, and living in Norway (she also speaks Norwegian). Her recorded output is released on the legendary label K Records, and produced by Phil Elvrum of the Microphones – there is no doubt that she comes with heavy underground credentials. Starting from the blueprint of voice and guitar, her songs often take flight into heady, avant-garde sonic realms, her exquisite voice pitching and falling among squalls of feedback and arrhythmic drums. Throughout it all, however, is the voice – clean of tone, with breathy entreaties and catch-in-the-throat key changes that steal your heart instantly: Mirah's is the voice of an angel. Most importantly, it is a commercial voice – one which, if put to use singing the pat homilies and teenage-angst clichés of, say, Dido or Avril Lavigne, would not sound out of place. Mirah's voice is utterly marketable, and this is her secret weapon. You could play 'C'Mon Miracle' to any lame-brained pop fan, and they would like it, even if they didn't 'get' the lyrics.

And what lyrics! Bold, brave, political and personal at the same time, Mirah deconstructs relationships, gender and family from the perspective of a bisexual woman, formerly married, and with a mixed-culture background. Her lyrics are far from easy – they wrap you up in internal contradictions, with meanings oscillating from literal to metaphorical and back again according to the singer's will. That kind of ambiguity takes practice. The directness of a song like Jerusalem ("You should know better than / To become the wicked ones / Almighty God once saved you from …") has its own power, while Don't Die In Me could be interpreted in several different ways ("Without the weight of being whole / Some fruits evolved all on their own.…"). Re-imagined as electronic productions, her work almost becomes easier to deconstruct – there is a sparseness to the remixes that allow you to take in the lyrics more slowly, de-complexifying the tensions she creates with the contrast between her subject matter and her angelic voice.

Publicity-shy, and with a release schedule that eschews as much media attention as it courts, Mirah is initially quite hard to discover. Pick up 'Joyride' and I guarantee you will be hooked for life. Mirah is the thinking person's singer-songwriter, in an era where the term has been debased by the likes of James Blunt and the aforementioned Dido. Mirah is so good, you almost don't want to share her. Shh. Keep her to yourselves.