Posts Tagged ‘Elizabeth Mitchell’

ELIZABETH – ” The Wonderful World Of Nature ” Best Albums Of 2019

Posted: December 17, 2019 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Elizabeth’s debut solo album, “The Wonderful World Of Nature”, is everything. It. Is. Everything. She sings of desire, infatuation, and heartache with unnerving honesty and openness. The language Elizabeth uses is straight-forward and unembellished, and it’s exactly this which makes her songs so poetic and affecting.

The first time I heard Elizabeth sing “I want you in every way. You don’t treat me nicely and I’m scared I’m gonna stay,” on “I Want You,” I doubled over, both physically and emotionally. In 2018, the frontwoman of Australian rock outlet Totally Mild released Her, an album that brilliantly unpacks the bittersweet, socially convoluted journey of domesticity and the lack of a blueprint for it within the context of queerness.

Her debut solo album, The Wonderful World of Nature, is its crushingly honest divorce counterpart. In a world that’s lacking many queer divorce albums at all, to hear one as honest and mind-bogglingly raw as this is a transformative treasure everyone should experience.

The Wonderful World Of Nature plays like a 11-stage gauntlet of post-breakup emotional grief; the path to moving on isn’t a straight line and might never end. Song-to-song, and often verse to verse, the winding line of grief makes its presence felt. “If not with you, then with who?” Elizabeth nearly howls on “Beautiful Baby,” the gently rocking first track, which gives way to “Parties,” a song about how distracting yourself with partying leads you to wondering if your ex is out doing the same, which, in turn, makes you miss them more. “Death Toll” is a slow march about the ways a break-up can leave you devastated, but also finds Elizabeth lamenting, “I will never be the same happy” after saying “It’s over baby, there’s nothing more to say.” The next track, “I Want You,” has Elizabeth softly singing over a piano, “You don’t treat me nicely, and I’m scared I’m gonna stay,” capturing layers of self-loathing, lust, and regret in a single line. The Wonderful World isn’t a bible for how to get over a breakup, but it feels more honest than breakup albums usually are; it’s never just a “fuck you” and it’s never just an “I wish we were still together.” When two people collide, they break up in unpredictable, awful, restorative ways.

The Wonderful World of Nature released Universal Music Australia

TOTALLY MILD – ” Her “

Posted: January 1, 2019 in MUSIC
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“I thought that I would want so many in my lifetime / But now the only one is you,” Totally Mild lead singer Elizabeth Mitchell sings a few minutes into the band’s sensational Her, an album that confronts the stasis, the beauty, the ennui and the comfort that comes with domesticity. Blessed with a voice that sounds like your grandma’s finest crystal, Mitchell sings haunting ballads (“Lucky Stars”), jangly indie rock (“Take Today”) and slow-crawling burners (“More”). It adds up to a bracingly pretty album, which for my money also has the single best line on any song this year: “Heaven’s knowing what you want when you’re young,” Mitchell sings on the album’s centerpiece “Today Tonight.”

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Following on from their acclaimed 2015 debut Down Time (released on Bedroom Suck in Australia, Fire Records in the UK), Her is a shining jewel of an album. Elizabeth Mitchell’s voice is a thing of unearthly beauty, capable of soaring and swooping in shiver-inducing ways. As a songwriter she is equally arresting, addressing desires and dreams with affecting frankness. About the new album, Mitchell says “Her is a record of failure and victory, new desire, stale romance, queer domesticity and what comes when the party is over. I was torn between a new domestic life and the impulse to tear it all away with bad choices. I fell in love, but I wrestled for independence. I was always trying to prove that I didn’t need anyone; my wife, my friends, my band. Her is a document of a woman struggling with the idea of potential. We are told that we could be limitless, but we wrestle with unseen personal and structural walls.”

In Totally Mild she is joined by guitar magician Zachary Schneider, drummer Ashley Bundang and bassist Lehmann Smith. In the last few years the band have developed a quasi-psychic intensity, surging forward or pulling back in seamless unison. This intensity has been captured in crystalline form by producer and one-time Architecture In Helsinki member James Cecil. Her is polished and spacious, while never losing the feeling of a band in full flight.

TOTALLY MILD – ” Lucky Stars “

Posted: February 19, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Totally Mild’s second album, Her, is a shiny, perfect slab of indie pop, with the self-confessional lyrics and vocals of lead singer Elizabeth Mitchell. Here’s what Mitchell said about the album:

“Her is a record of failure and victory, new desire, stale romance, queer domesticity and what comes when the party is over. I was torn between a new domestic life and the impulse to tear it all away with bad choices. I fell in love, but I wrestled for independence. I was always trying to prove that I didn’t need anyone; my wife, my friends, my band. Her is a document of a woman struggling with the idea of potential. We are told that we could be limitless, but we wrestle with unseen personal and structural walls.”

recorded Live in the studio performance of the new Totally Mild single “Lucky Stars”. The new Totally Mild album Her is out February 23rd on pink or black vinyl,

We have it on a translucent green vinyl, and it’s among our favorite albums of 2018 so far.

TOTALLY MILD – ” Her “

Posted: January 13, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Following on from their acclaimed 2015 debut Down Time (released on Bedroom Suck in Australia, Fire Records in the UK), Her is a shining jewel of an album. Elizabeth Mitchell’s voice is a thing of unearthly beauty, capable of soaring and swooping in shiver-inducing ways. As a songwriter she is equally arresting, addressing desires and dreams with affecting frankness.

In Totally Mild she is joined by guitar magician Zachary Schneider, drummer Ashley Bundang and bassist Lehmann Smith. In the last few years the band have developed a quasi-psychic intensity, surging forward or pulling back in seamless unison. This intensity has been captured in crystalline form by producer and one-time Architecture In Helsinki member James Cecil. Her is polished and spacious, while never losing the feeling of a band in full flight.

After Down Time’s release, Totally Mild toured UK/Europe in 2015, then hit the US in early 2017, playing SXSW and a string of LA/NYC shows. In Australia they have played Meredith Music Festival and shared stages with the likes of Real Estate, Kurt Vile, Best Coast, DIIV and The Chills.

About the new album, Mitchell says “Her is a record of failure and victory, new desire, stale romance, queer domesticity and what comes when the party is over. I was torn between a new domestic life and the impulse to tear it all away with bad choices. I fell in love, but I wrestled for independence. I was always trying to prove that I didn’t need anyone; my wife, my friends, my band. Her is a document of a woman struggling with the idea of potential. We are told that we could be limitless, but we wrestle with unseen personal and structural walls.”

Mood rises and falls expertly throughout the album: Working Like A Crow, originally written for a children’s choir, is simple in its self-sufficiency. From One Another is an eulogy for a toxic relation- ship given the most graceful pop setting. Mitchell’s love for piano balladry is showcased on Lucky Stars, while Today Tonight is kinetic, dynamic guitar pop at its finest.. 

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Across their powerful, delicate, luminous second album Her, Totally Mild move through light and shade with silky finesse.

“A shining talisman for the heartbroken” – Pitchfork
“Engorged, engaged, empowered bedroom sulk music” – The Guardian “Sweet, harmony-rich, pointedly concise jangle-pop” – NPR
“Skewed pop gold” – Noisey
“An ethereal voice…lovely songs and just-so jangly arrangements” – BrooklynVegan

TOTALLY MILD – ” Downtime “

Posted: December 19, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Totally Mild’s “Down Time” is the record Melbourne’s music community had to have. As the dole wave revolution slowly yet surely turns into a distant tuneless memory, Totally Mild release a melancholic album masked by the sweet vocals of Liz Mitchell.

Ears are pricked early in the record on ‘When I’m Tired’. It is a 100-second pop masterpiece with a catchy hook and lovely vocal harmonies that simply has to be heard. Penultimate track ‘Always Around’ is a cute number which highlights Mitchell’s aural acrobatics. It’s short, it’s sweet, and it’s my favourite Australian album of 2015.

Sparse, liquid-like arrangements drenched in reverb and Elizabeth Mitchell’s angelic falsetto are the signature elements making up this excellent debut from Melbourne’s Totally Mild.

It’s as if Best Coast, Camera Obscura and Surfer Blood all broke up with their partners and made an album together. The result is hauntingly beautiful, mysteriously seductive and entirely fascinating. Down Time is unashamedly woeful at points. Mostly the songs presented here are introspective, hopeful-yet-heartbroken ballads sprinkled with Zach Schneider’s melody-complementing guitar and some of the most considered and tasteful drums and percussion heard in recent years. Down Time is slow, steady, contemplative and beautiful.

All songs written and recorded by Elizabeth Mitchell with Lehmann B. Smith: Bass (1, 3, 6), Vocals (8) and Guitar (5) Zachary Schneider: Drums (3, 6) and Yuko Kono: Recorder