Without the weight of being whole: On Remixes.

I was always really hesitant to like Mirah, possibly because she has a completely different sense of what to emphasize than what I’ve found appealing about her. At first, she is stark and somewhat angst-ridden, with choruses like “If we sleep together, will it make it any better?/ If we sleep together, would you be my friend forever?”, which though charming, are kind of off-putting to my particular psychic make-up. However, on a closer listen, Mirah is absolutely spot-on. The same song with those adolescent lyrics has beautiful, well-composed gems of couplets: “Hey friends, don’t you think we’d better cool it down/ You’re always getting curious and leaving town… It’s not like we forget about who we are/ So choose a path and follow it, take a pill and swallow it/ It’s not forever we can fool around in the dark”. These are reflective—these, I appreciate.

So, K records just put out a double (!) album of Mirah remixes. Though I am short on cash (sort of—mostly I’m just saving up to buy Dolly Parton memorabilia when I go to Dollywood next week), I have managed to download/track down several of the tracks from Joyride: Remixes. At first, I was hesitant. But part of the problem with Mirah was always her starkness and her honesty. Most of the remixes manage to highlight Mirah’s voice and lyrics (inevitably, when thought out, the best parts of her songs) without obfuscating them. I find the remix of “La Familia” (which I quoted above) particularly good. It’s by a guy named Guy Sigsworth, who I am sure I am indie-illiterate for not knowing [ed. He was in Frou Frou, which makes total sense. This song has their slickness, but with Mirah’s soul]. It makes the song wonderfully intricate, not so plain and sad. To me, at least, Mirah was unappealing in her mournfulness. These remixes tend to move past that, to a blossoming version of the original vision. Though they might not be better than the originals, they are interesting enough to get one through, say, a finals week.