| BIOGRAPHY
Mia Doi Todd was born
and raised in Los Angeles, California. Trained
as a classical vocalist in her adolescence and
teenage years, Mia began writing songs while a
student at Yale University, inspired by the mid-90’s
Indie Rock movement. She recorded her debut album
The Ewe and the Eye – just her voice and
acoustic guitar -- in one evening at the “Spaceshed”
studio run by the LA band Further who then released
it on their label in 1997 just as Todd was graduating
from college. She relocated to New York City,
playing downtown clubs and recording a second
spare, acoustic album Come Out of Your Mine (The
Communion Label, 1999). Mia spent a year in Japan
studying the avant-garde dance form, Ankoku Butoh,
and began to write longer, intricate songs. On
her return to Los Angeles, Mia went to work on
her third album and formed City Zen Records to
release Zeroone in 2001. These first three records
all featured minimal, acoustic instrumentation,
emphasizing her soaring vocals and finely wrought
lyrics, the latter redolent of romantic poetry,
but employing puns, alliteration, homonyms and
many other verbal experiments.
In 2002, Mia found a new home with Columbia Records’
Columbia Jazz imprint and re-recorded songs drawn
from her previous albums with fuller instrumentation
and more involved production, aided by Mitchell
Froom and Yves Beauvais, resulting in The Golden
State album. When Columbia Jazz was shuttered,
Todd moved on to the Plug Research label, continuing
to pursue more orchestrated arrangements on a
significant portion of her fifth album, Manzanita,
2005. There she was joined in the studio by friends,
Brent Rademaker and Rob Campanella. While some
songs were reserved for just her voice and guitar
or piano, others feature cameo appearances by
members of Dead Meadow, Beachwood Sparks and the
entire band Future Pigeon. In 2006, Manzanita
was followed up by La Ninja: Amor and other dreams
of Manzanita, an album of remixes by Dntel, DJ
Nobody, Flying Lotus and more. La Ninja also had
three altogether new tracks and a cover of the
Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood."
Mia is a true artist -- an expressionist in many
forms. Her garden of song is vast with flowers
of infinite shape, color, size, and individuality.
GEA is her most intuitive and primal collection
of songs yet. Full of incredible passion and sensitivity,
these songs reveal the depths of Mia’s emotions,
visions and lyrical heart. The album opens with
Mia playing guitar and harmonium accompanied by
Andres Renteria on hand drums and prolific Chicago-based
bassist Joshua Abrams (Sam Prekop, Prefuse 73).
Broken, surviving, searching, and hopeful, Mia
begins to sing and chant, flowing in the great
“River Of Life” that all beings travel.
The songs each follow suit beautifully, evanescently,
featuring woodwind, brass and string arrangements
by the young and talented multi-instrumentalist/composer
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. His arrangements seem
to lift Mia on their wings for a mystical journey
of intense projection, romance, mourning, and
otherworldly imagery.
Mia has toured the US and Europe, headlining and
opening for other artists, including Throwing
Muse Kristen Hirsch, Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion,
Saul Williams, The Books, and Dungen. Having released
records with labels as major and established as
Columbia and as progressive and boutique as Plug
Research, Mia is now enjoying her return to the
homegrown approach. In addition to her lengthy
music discography, Mia has choreographed and performed
three solo dance pieces and dances with the group,
Body Weather Laboratory.
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