mia katherine boyle

Perennial favorite Mia Katherine Boyle has released a new cd of brilliant songs not to be missed called "Old Flowers" out on Chroma. Not only is the song writing deep, thoughtful, moody and beautiful, but she has brought together a fantastic group of musicians (she refers to them as magicians as well on her MySpace profile, and they are) to be envied by any solo singer songwriter in the area.

A sleepy slide guitar rides through songs such as "Walnut Trees," about her former home, California, and "Reflections" and "Old Flowers" songs about staying gone from relationships that maybe should never have been. I like the affect the slide has on my emotions in these songs as I go meandering along with it in and out of these journies along with Boyle. The slide is a guide through the story-dreams Boyle creates with he song writing.
Boyle's voice is quite passionate on this cd. I believe this is her best vocal performance to date. My current favorite (this can change depending on my mood) of the five songs she demos on her player is "Over and Over". Here, her voice is strong and Chrissy Hynde like and very clear and full off emotion. The song ventures the use of horns over growly lead guitas lines, rythym guitar (which she plays) and a nicely melodic and heavy bass along with pocketed drumming. This makes for plenty of nice canvas for Boyle's, expressive alto to work with. The horn arrangement makes the bridge a real hook and warbly guitar sounds on a build up accent her strong voice and words with huge emotional impact. "Over and over, repeating the lies in your head, you living a past life, don't try to make sense of the dead ... You better get it straight no one is steady as you think, the rivers are rising you better learn to swim before you sink ... Another pretender stumbling up to the throne, you wouldn't surrender, now you're on top alone".
Boyle is a real story teller speaking of the usual fare of life and relationships gone awry, being far from home and wondering how someone else cared for really is. However, she puts her own voice to these tales we all have in common in a creative and refreshingly comforting way. In other words, these songs could simply be downers but they are not. They are contemplations she invites you in on. They are potential life crushing disasters she tells us we can not only survive, but walk away from a better person. For me, it's not just the words that does this, but also the entire performance of these songs. The band expertly maintains mid to slow tempos throughout the songs, but it's a kind of upbeat accented "slow". Also, bright sounds help accent not loss but acceptance and gain. Whether she has actually written the words or not, I feel a sense of triumph in all of the songs she has on her profile.

The music is dreamy rock-n-roll with a sleepy quality that does not, however, bore the listener. It does rock out even with mid and slow tempos setting the pace. The slide guitar may drift and meander on the lip of the dream but the rest of the arrangement on these songs keeps us fully awake, listening and contemplating along with Boyle, life's ironies, disasters and triumphs. "The List" is a good example of this. As Boyle recites a list of losses we may experience in life, by the end, this does not leave one burnt out or sad. Instead, after many listens (I could not stop listening!), I felt as if Boyle, and other folks experience and live through just as many of life's disasters as I do and come out all the stronger. I think it's her voice, stong, clear and often of the verge of a growl yet remaining sober and the arrangement of bright guitar sounds along with it that help this phenomenon occur.
Overall, excellent work from a scene veteran who deserves tons of attention from us for this A+ effort. Please hop over to Boyle's page a give a listen to all four songs, then support local music and purchase this one. It will be a fine addition to your collection. -Kj - http://www.myspace.com/radiofreeseattle

POSTED May 2, 4:56 PM
After having played guitar in various bands (Bullet Train, Nitrous Foxide, The Now, and others; both Bullet Train and The Now recorded CD's), Mia Boyle began focusing on a career as a solo artist ten years ago, releasing a CD called "I Am A Diver," now available via CD Baby. Singing, playing guitar and writing the lyrics and music, she didn't actually form a real band until recently. "I Am A Diver," for example, spotlights Mia's voice and her acoustic guitar, and between now and then, she has passed through a variety of projects, her present combo gelling after a serendipitous series of meetings. This band has practically finished recording a new record at Chroma Sound Studios in Ballard, which should be out soon. Included in the present line-up are Marcus Pina (formerly of Peace Love and Guitars, Alta May, currently also in Press Corps) on bass, and Rob Dent on drums. Also on the new record are the following: Maggie Bjorklund on pedal steel guitar; Johnny Sangster (brother of The Young Fresh Fellows' Jim Sangster and well-known local producer who has worked with such acts as Mudhoney) on various guitars, keyboards, tambourines; Jason Staczek on Piano and B3; Erik Roper (formerly of Alta May and currently in Press Corps; he's also almost finished with a solo record that'll be coming out soon) on trumpet and vocals; Lori Goldston on cello; and J.R., Alicia Dara, and Filia McGann, all on back-up vocals. Johnny Sangster takes care of the production duties.

Mia's first solo CD, "I Am A Diver" contains 10 tracks that feature a stripped down approach that consists of mostly just Mia's voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar, some slide guitar by Eric Richards (also of Bullet Train), as well as backing vocals, bass, and some other over-dubs. The sound is spare, and the songs tell lyrical tales of loss and denial; the starkness suits the material. At times, these simple acoustic guitar arrangements approach the translucent spareness that is characteristic of Nick Drake (albeit with a gram of voodoo thrown in for spice, as well as a woman singer). This new CD, however, involves a full band, and not only that, but rich instrumentation, and so if the first CD sounds haunting and melodic within its instrumental limitations, the new one does too, but the effect is now more complete and more accomplished, because it represents a more complex vision, and the boundaries are fewer.

The Quaranteens, one of my former bands, shared a practice studio with Nitrous Foxide in around 2000, and The Now included Pat Conner and Adrian Makins (both of Valis; Adrian is also in All Time High and my new band), but I didn't really meet Mia until very recently, when some friends suggested that I check out her music. Mia herself then gave me CD's that represent various stages in her development as a musician and a singer, and it's very interesting to listen to how her voice and songwriting have changed and grown over the years. Nitrous Foxide, as I recall, were a heavy all-girl band (at first, that is; eventually, Dana Sims, who now owns and runs El Corazon, played drums as did superstar Pat Conner of Valis) and The Now played super-heavy songs in which Mia's vocals pierced the walls of distorted chords with the kind of screaming toughness that is not required in the context of her new material, which involves more eclectic instrumentation and consequently more texture and depth. Her voice is full, and she can sing beautifully in a hard rock band, but with these new songs, her voice is fuller and more relaxed, and she can go more places with it. This was already apparent on "I Am A Diver," but with the new CD, she's moved closer, her range is greater, her voice more assured.

This time the songs also move, generally speaking, at a slower and less frenzied tempo, and the spaces that are opened up allow a lot of room for layered vocals, various percussion instruments, pedal steel guitar, cello, piano, and of course the lead vocals. You can understand most of the lyrics, so you get the sense of a narrative being told, and the music seems to provide a soundtrack for it. Beneath the varied layered tracks of vocals, backing vocals, guitar and pedal steel guitar and keyboards, the songs are anchored by the solid pulse of the bass and drums, both of which are expertly played by Pina and Dent, who, along with Mia herself, compose the core of this interesting band.

Listening to these new songs, I hear some Screaming Trees, and the slide guitar gives the songs, in some cases, a countryish flavor, not unlike that found in the music of Lucinda Williams. With this new CD, you get a sense of a life that has been lived, over the years, on both coasts and in Europe, an odyssey that has brought Mia to Seattle more than once, and in this sense, I suppose, the time and the experience have given her a more mature and reflective voice. It's astonishing to note her stylistic range, and it's clear that although this CD proves that she's more than capable of being a singer/songwriter, she could also do most anything else, as her other projects have shown.

This weekend Mia and her band will be shooting a new video for "The List," a song off the new CD (which has yet to be titled), which will be directed by Seattle film-maker Kris Kristensen (whose recent work includes the features Inheritance and White Face, the former of which is a rather stylish film noir about possession and obsession; he runs Scotopia Pictures, a film and video production company). Judging by Mia's description, it will not only be worth seeing, but it will also be exhausting to make, involving 13 separate performances of the song, which will be edited together. In addition to the new CD (put out through Chroma Sound Recordings imprint), Mia will be playing 2 upcoming shows, the first with her band (May 10th at the Skylark with Slippage and Sister Psychic); the second will be August 9th at The Rendezvous, where she'll be playing an acoustic set.
- http://www.examiner.com/x-248-Seattle-Music-Examiner

MIA BOYLE
I Am a Diver
(Kitchen Whore)
***

Onetime Stranger music writer Mia Boyle, who's performed around Seattle in such bands as Bullet Train, Moxie, and Radialarmsaw, delivers a moody suite of slow and sultry ballads, performed on multitracked guitars and vocals with ample echo effects. A few of the tracks sound like what Hole's "Doll Parts" might have sounded like if sung by a more human-scale personage. Other tracks drift into a hypnotic dream state somewhere between subtle awareness, erotic afterglow, and the quiet not-really depression of staring outside on a rainy, overcast March day as the diffused light fades into diffused twilight. Utterly beautiful. One might also note that Boyle only includes a few, quite small photos of herself on the inside flaps of the gorgeously designed Digipak. In the age of Lilith mania, it's refreshing to know there's one female acoustic-singer-songwriter type who'd rather be known for her work than for her image. CH - The Stranger, Seattle