Imagine a slightly more soft-voiced Nina Simone picking up a guitar and making gorgeous, low-key indie-pop. -Cecilia, Rocksellout.com
where you can listen to me
Music Slut
The Plugg
Largehearted Boy
Rock Sellout
Captian’s Dead
Cable and Tweed
Atoms 4 Peace
Broadcaster House
Pasta Primavera
Muzzle of Bees
Allan’s World
The Mobtown Shank
Squirrrelfood
Let Me Like It
ALANKOMAAT
ANA Blog
A Hipster’s Progress
The Cropper!
Indiefeed Podcasts
about "This is How i Found You"
Berkeley PlaceThe first song on Miwa Gemini’s new record, “Picnic,” is a somewhat creepy song that brings to mind Tom Waits (but with a better singer) and Bjork (but with more linear songwriting). After all that quiet longing, the record transports us to barroom blues/country, with “Traveling Man” (“My man’s a traveling man/He don’t tell me where he’s been/But it’s not hard to find out where he’s been/He leaves a trail of broken hearts”). Right after that comes “Something Ordinary:” A sad, old-style ballad. And I’m thinking, “Who is this chick?”
Rock SelloutCute as a button and talented as few, Miwa Gemini is a breath of fresh air to the female “singer-song writer” stable. Her voice is sweet, yet deep, and her folk-music stands out from the crowd thanks to the use of banjo and mandolin. It’s a bit like throwing The Mountain Goats together with Nina Simone and Tom Waits: hazy, organic, and simply stunning.
The StrangerThe Music Slut recently featured an artist named Miwagemini.
The song that the Music Slut linked to, “Pieces,” is a weird kind of not-song, and not at all the sort of thing I’m usually into. I can’t stop thinking about it, though, and the more I hear it, the better it gets.
The artists listed as influences—Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, and so on—are there, but I also keep hearing something that nobody else is mentioning: I think Miwagemini sounds like Siouxsie Sioux run through a turn-of-the-century folk group. She—they?—will be playing in Olympia on April 5th, in Vancouver on the 6th, and…in Portland on the 9th. Maybe somebody should book her (them?) in Seattle for one of those days in between. I’d be really curious to see what the crowd at a Miwagemini show looks like.
Pasta PrimaveraGemini brings me back to the first time I heard bands like Persephone’s Bees or maybe Cat Power. Whispers of piano, guitar, and mandolin line the recesses of each song. They live there quietly moving the melody and tempo as Miwa’s voice sleepily paints lush lyrics over them. The end result are late night songs that settle in your mind and resonate for hours after the first note.
Baby SueMiwa Gemini has apparently been hanging around all the right places with all the right people. This provocative young lady’s music bears an uncanny resemblance to Yoko Ono’s early albums.the vocals are particularly similar. (Some of these tracks sound as if they could have been outtakes from the Approximately Infinite Universe sessions.). Considering the fact that Ono’s music has seen a major resurgence over the past couple of years, the time may just be ripe for Gemini to make some major waves. This Is How I Found You will be instantly embraced by folks in underground circles. Gemini’s songs are smart and to-the-point. Her music doesn’t fit squarely within previously defined arenas. Haunting melodies combine with strangely fragile vocals layered over exacting and appropriate arrangements. The results.are highly original and thoroughly engaging. Cool tracks include "Picnic," "Pieces," "Room of You," and "Paperwhites." Recommended. (Rating: 5++)
Losing TodayIts so easy to find yourself headlong in love and knee deep in the warming affectionate embrace of ’this is how I found you’ - not with standing the mere detail that this 9 track debut is only a mere 34 minutes in length - the sounds are so delicately unobtrusive and soft that they flutter by in an instant.
Sonic SlangAmid our typical Post-Grammy outrage, Miwa Gemini popped into our email, peaked our interest and renewed our hope. "New York chanteuse Miwa Gemini, takes on the darkest affairs of the heart with a saccharine smile and haunting vocals you won’t hear anywhere else." Or so says her publicist, but based on the strength of tracks like "Traveling Man" and "Pieces" we’re inclined to agree.
Darkly beautiful, rough around the edges and old-school in a 1950s barroom honky tonk kind of way, Miwa Gemini could be described as a meeting between Patsy Cline and Cat Power, but such a trendy comparison is selling her short. These are strikingly original tunes from an artist that made us almost forget that Herbie Hancock won Best Album last night.almost.
Smother.netNew York City’s Miwa Gemini is part of that growing group of female artists who write jangly pop songs tuned to the key of Bjork and Jenny Lewis. Against an anti-folk backdrop, she paints a life of a troubadour and vagrant. “This Is How I Found You” weaves magical lyrics with hushed vocals and a sublime if flavored indie folk. It’s a pleasant listen that beckons you to the smoky dens that Gemini caresses throughout her epic opus
Americana UKThe first thing that stands out on ‘This is How I found You’ is an element of Bjork like eccentricity to Miwa’s sound. However, Miwa manages to use this eccentricity to charm rather than annoy the listener. Admirably, she is not afraid of a bit of cross genre pollination in her sound also. Some tracks float buy in a pseudo, anti-folk haze (‘Room of You’ and ‘Forever For Never’) while the better tracks (in my opinion), have a harder edge to them (‘Travelling Man’, ‘Crazy Over You’).
A&ANot many folks inspire comparisons to Patsy Cline and Bjork, but then there aren’t many folks like Miwa Gemini. She spins rootsy pop and rock into her own stew of attitude and aggression. Even the mellow pieces have serious bite. There’s an undercurrent of fear and malice that really attracts me.
Song by ToadWelcome to yet another album I have taken an absolute age to review. I think that’s because there’s about two thirds of a really good record here, although it tails off quite badly towards the end. The first five songs, however, are terrific. A sort of mysterious mixture between Portishead, Paris Motel and Jolie Holland, it’s a bit difficult to find out much about her on the internets. It’s all parable and allegory, which sort of fits the aesthetic of the album itself, which is suffused with hushed, fairytale beauty.
Absolute PunkMiwa has the enchanting vocals of a French cabaret singer managing to wrap her audience around her finger with complete ease. The music falls under her spell as well, lining her bewitching vocal sweeps with a series of soft guitar tangles, whispering drums and complementing knolls in the keyboards on tracks like “Picnic” and “Something Ordinary,” and then shifting to the seductive-salon styled vocals of Bobby Gentry for the country-tinged “Traveling Man” with banjo and mandolin shakes railing along freight-train rhythms. Her songs have an alternative-pop glare relatable to Jesca Hoop and Mindy Smith taking advantage of a voice that resonates splendidly through valleys and over mountain tops.
Earshot
On Miwa Gemini’s CD This Is How I Found You, the sparse, dreamy soundscapes simultaneously elicit the desert and the oasis. The starkness of it all is almost unbearable at times, but the airy delicateness of Miwa’s voice seems to reliably rise through the dusty surface like some North Star in a diminishing sky. Instrumentally, less is proven to be more as this collection rocks back and forth from lullaby to foot-tapper within a consistently minimalist palette, with surprises limited to the understated. And how effective and catchy it can be - “Crazy Over You” keeps rollin’ like a tumbleweed through my brain. Throughout the disc, guitars of both dirt and clouds weave around a skeletal rhythm section, with the occasional piano or harp chiming in nicely. This collection is a gentle wind.
Terra Scope UKSimilarly structured, less orchestrated songs (referring to Rasputina’s new album) can be found on ‘This Is How I Found You’, the new album from Miwa Gemini, whose strong voice is augmented with guitar, banjo, and mandolin, giving a dusty folk feel to the songs. Highlights include the blues stomp of ‘Traveling Man’, the lovely banjo flecked ‘Pieces’ which reminds me of early Michelle Shocked, and the soft/loud/soft Nirvana folk of ‘Angels Prayer, which sounds perfect as the flood waters rise again.
HeliumThe intimacy of her performance on the record is reminiscent of torchlight singers, a long forgotten style which was popular in the night clubs of the Left Bank in Paris, France throughout the early 20th century.
I heart Music
a little interview
Main Stream Isn’t So Bad, Sunday Spotlight
show reviews
Washington Post Review of the show at Iota, Feb. 2008
Sound Proof Review of Indie Week 2007 show at Holy Joe’s, Oct. 2007
"This is HOw I Found You" now available at Insound.com
Forgetful Ocean and Other Strange Stories
Also available at iTune and Amoeba Music in San Fransisco
