From Angelic Voices The Tallahassee, FL, dream pop quartet Mira formed in 1996 with singer/songwriter Regina Sosinski, guitarist Tom Parker, bassist Sam Riles, and drummer Alan Donaldson as its founding members. The group released the Something Ventured EP on Tesseract Records soon after they began playing. After Riles departed, Mira went through several bassists and guitarists before settling on guitarist Mark Davidson. All the while, the group continued recording and released the Dry EP, which featured an early version of the song “Cayman” that ended up on the Projekt compilation A Cat-Shaped Hole in My Heart. Next was 1999’s limited-edtion Cowhausexclusive EP, which Mira released to celebrate their first show in nearly a year. Soon after the release of Dry, Projekt signed the group and they began working on their self-titled debut album, which the label released in early 2000. Apart followed in the fall of 2001. For 2005, Mira returns with their most focused, mature, and fully realized release to date. There I go daydreamer is a testament documenting the band’s attention to detail, ear for texture, and desire to capture the intensity of their live shows. From the unnerving guitars of the album opener “Say When,” Regina immediately sets the tone: “I’ve drawn the line, walked it too many times.” Thus begins the daydreamer journey, taking the listener through fear, hope, and catharsis as Regina poses and plays with the questions plaguing her. Never before has she been so open and candid in her lyrics. The album shifts from danceable hits such as the shoegazey and spacey “Highs in the Lows,” and the brief, but brilliant, drive of “Heavenly Slumber” to grand epics like the heavy folk stylings of “Long Division” and the bombastic “Nearest Exit” from which the album is named. In the midst of all of this are the most crystalline and brilliant songs Mira has written, from the jazzy feel of “No Other Way,” to one of the album’s greatest songs, the sparse and ghostly beautiful “Adrift.” “Hinterland,” the album’s closer, is a return to the tension out of which the album began, returning Regina to her questions, searching for a brave face. The lines “inside a cave I will hibernate / when the seasons change I will not even wake” are some of the most painful, as the album builds, explodes, and collapses under its own weight. This latest album from Mira, more than any other, establishes the band at the forefront of the current darkwave/shoegaze/post-punk revival, and cements their place in the annals as one of the best of the bunch, not only on Projekt records, but also across the whole of music today. Absolutely brilliant, an instant classic.
