Mirah - Advisory Committee [Blood Red]

Advisory Committee is the record where Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn's songwriting and Phil Elverum's production found their perfect meeting point. Released on K Records in 2002 and recorded largely at Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia, it remains the most beloved album in a catalog full of quietly remarkable ones.

It opens with "Cold Cold Water," five minutes that begin as a hushed acoustic confession and detonate into strings and crashing percussion, and that dynamic range sets the terms for everything after. "Special Death" is devastating in under three minutes, "The Garden" and "Body Below" work in loops and found textures, and "Apples In The Trees" gathers a room full of friends into its harmonies. Elverum's production treats every sound as material to be pushed past its limits, and Mirah's voice stays intimate no matter how much noise surrounds it.

More than twenty years later it stands as a cornerstone of Pacific Northwest indie music, a record whose influence turns up constantly in bedroom pop and lo-fi songwriting without ever being matched.

This reissue is pressed on blood red vinyl via Double Double Whammy. A gorgeous edition of a record that has been out of print far too often.