In the early 2000s in Olympia, Wash., it was not uncommon to see Mirah sitting in the back of a show, knitting. To her credit, this was years before the ubiquity of Stich 'n Bitch and Etsy and "Urban Craft Uprisings" and that one woman at the gym who knits while riding the stationary bicycle (hate). No way of proving this, but Thao Nguyen doesn't come across like much of a knitter. Where Mirah's best songs feel handmade and soft to the touch, Thao's with the Get Down Stay Down tend to be a bit more serrated and electrically charged.
The least you expect when a pair of singer/songwriters gets together is that they be harmonious, that their voices don't clash horribly or that one doesn't just steamroll the other under their usual style. The most you hope for is that each player will bring to the table something the other lacks-- that, rather than conflict, their differences will synthesize into something greater than the sum of their parts. Thao and Mirah are two of the more distinctive and accomplished voices in Kill Rock Stars and K Records' neighborly families, and, happily, they also turn out to be massively complimentary collaborators.
Mirah is the more senior of the two artists, and in fact she has a long history of playing well with others, from early recordings with the Microphones/Mount Eerie's Phil Elverum to later works with Black Cat Orchestra and Spectratone International. But on most works bearing her name, she's the main, and often only, voice. It is an incredible voice-- a versatile coo that can flit from low, sultry tones to high, airy falsetto in one breath-- but on recent albums, it's been deployed in service of increasingly staid songs and arrangements. Thao is a less ranging, though just as emotive, singer-- a low, husky alto-- but she's an adventurous musician, as comfortable with exuberant pop fanfare as with twangy, metallic blues, and her songs with the Get Down Stay Down are animated by a level of energy that Mirah's most recent work has rather lacked. Together, they've produced an album that ranks alongside the best of either artist's individual endeavors.
The album begins on the high note of "Eleven" (presumably as in the amp setting), a fire-cracking rhythm of drumstick clicks and handclaps and crowd shouting underpinning rich synth squelches and what sounds like an electrified mbira melody while Thao and Mirah trade lines or come together for the chorus, "When love is love/ Don't let it go away"-- the whole thing is nothing short of jubilant. The song was also co-written by Thao & Mirah co-producer/guest musician Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, and it has her loopy, Afro-pop fracturing fingerprints all over it.
The rest of Thao & Mirah could just coast on the goodwill from that song, but of course it doesn't. "Folks" takes a simple, twangy waltz-time guitar and adds seeping brass. "Little Cup" has Mirah's voice going from high and hollow-boned to downy and enveloping over fluttering, finger-picked guitar and a whispering a cappella, almost beatboxed rhythm. "Rubies and Rocks" expands a jazzy upright bass and snare groove to include low-swinging big band horns. Thao's measured singing breaks into an unexpectedly robust chorus on "Teeth", over dexterous guitar and a subtly upbeat rhythm of handlcaps and thigh slaps.
Some songs are more clearly led by one singer or the other-- Mirah's mournful unreeling on "Spaced Out Orbit" or Thao's rusty guitar slide and junkyard drum clatter of "Squareneck", as opposed to the back-and-forth of "How Dare You", on which the two trade lines like negotiating lovers over a cruddy drum machine beat. But everything on Thao & Mirah feels of a cohesive collaborative piece, separate from either artist's solo work, a combination that synthesizes their individual strengths to outstanding effect.
