It's been 25 years since Mirah first emerged from a flourishing Pacific Northwest indie scene to release her debut LP You Think It's Like This but Really It's Like This. Co-produced by Phil Elverum, on whose early Microphones records Mirah was regularly featured, the album immediately established Mirah as a generational songwriting talent. The album's influence has echoed down to the present day, "shaping the aesthetic of bedroom pop" (NPR), and impacting the output of two generations of indie musicians, as evidenced by the expanded reissue of the album released by Double Double Whammy in 2020, which featured covers of the album's songs from artists like Flock of Dimes, Allison Crutchfield, Hand Habits, Palehound, Mal Blum, and WHY?.
In the decade's since her debut, Mirah has continued to release a stream of critically acclaimed LPs and has collaborated with a broad collection of prominent musicians including Thao Nguyen, Deerhoof's Greg Saunier, Mary Timony, Calvin Johnson and Tune-Yards, but has not released new music since her 2018 LP Understanding, the longest gap between full lengths in her career to date.
Today, Mirah is making her return to share her first single in 7 years, a track entitled "Catch My Breath," which is out on Double Double Whammy and Mirah's long-running imprint Absolute Magnitude.
On "Catch My Breath," Mirah adopts an '80s power pop sound, channelling The Cars with the help of a studio band featuring Jenn Wasner of Flock of Dimes, Meg Duffy (aka Hand Habits) and Andrew Maguire.
Mirah says of the track: "When this song first came out it had a sonically pensive aura. I could tell it was a keeper, but I wanted to try some different presentations, play with it a little. Could the wound spring of questioning and longing and relationship anxiety sound bombastic, or fun, or like an 80's pop song? That's what we went for in the studio, and with Jenn, Meg, and Andrew Maguire in there with me it really just took off. I love how the song expressed its malleability to me and then took so well to the treatment."
Find the track on Mirah's Bandcamp.