Mia Doi Todd

Mia Doi Todd played recently at Montreal's Cabaret Juste Pour Rire. I had the opportunity to stop by for a listen....

Mia Doi Todd graced the stage at Montreal''s Cabaret Juste Pour Rire last night opening for Jose Gonzalez. Methinks, the lineup should have been reversed, I''ll say no more. Mia was in fine form playing what I''m guessing were mainly songs off of the new album - I only recognized one song off of La Manzanita - which I actually know more through the subsequent remix album La Ninja than through the original.

Mia sang beautifully to the accompaniment of her classical guitar and a tasteful percussionist she brought with her who alternated mainly between conga and Cuban box drum but he also did some nice tambourine work on at least one song. One nice instrumental featured Mia on penny whistle. The crowd swooned. Mixing engineer got in on the act as well on this show, filling out the song with some tasteful slow delay effects that added to the mystical, ethereal soundscape that Mia creates.

I hadn''t noticed the strong Joni Mitchell influence before - at this show it was very clear that Mia Doi Todd has borrowed some of the sophisticated chord progressions and melodies that Mitchell trademarked back in the day. It worked very nicely of course with the LA hippy flowing hair and dress vibe that Mia was putting across.

Great concert, some really strong new songs off of Gea so if you don''t have the opportunity to see Mia in concert on this or subsequent tours, then I recommend checking out the new record Gea, or the aforementioned Manzanita and the La Ninja remix album. Beautiful, mystic, smart, healing folk music.

http://www.miadoitodd.com/

Gordon B. Isnor