Mitski – Laurel Hell: Album Review

Mitski is a relatively new and exciting Pop artist running hot as an ingenue singer-songwriter, and she blooms with darker material on Laurel Hell.

Mitsuki Laycock was born to a Japanese mother and American father and grew up in Mie Prefecture with Japanese as her first language. The life of a diplomat’s child took her through Turkey, Czech Republic, China and Malaysia. A lot of the East and a little West

A choir singer in high school. In New York she studied at a music conservatory and at film school. All the ingredients for a perfect storm inside which an artist may flourish. There is the ghost shadow of Yoko Ono.

The albums Puberty 2 (2016) and Be the Cowboy (2018) pushed her from small cult to bigger cult status and a devoted fan base which is growing.

The songs of Laurel Hell were developed and influenced around the initial shock wave of the pandemic in America. She currently calls Nashville home. Describes herself as a vegan, and she loves horror films and cats. It is only a matter of time before David Lynch calls.

Valentine,Texas opens the album and establishes the cinematic mood. Recalls Paris, Texas from forty years ago. A dream movie and the title track from Ry Cooder, which was a spectral version of the classic Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground by Blind Willie Johnson.

Slow and foreboding. Let’s step carefully into the dark/ Once we’re in I’ll remember my way around. When the music drops, there are lush dramatic organ tones. A phantom of the opera and masks, drama and intrigue are promised.

Working For the Knife. Begins with the synthesiser drag and drone tones of Laurie Anderson’s Big Science. Minimalist voice which slowly builds in melody.

Everyone continues with ominous shuffling mood music. The voice is seductive and heavenly. Left the door open to the dark/ I said “Come in, come in wherever you are”/ I open my arms wide to the dark. The movie that plays out in your head, Let the Right One In, a classy vampire thriller.

Stay Soft is Disco led by a pure Chic style bass guitar. An irresistible rhythmic flow and the singer delivers a perfect seductive Pop vocal performance. It’s a honey trap, though. Open up your heart like the gates of hell.

The album title could be an allusion to the legend of Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon. The legendary enclave of the Singer-Songwriter cult which flourished from the latter Sixties. Mama Cass Elliot, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills and Nash. And Neil Young.

Along with the essential music was excess. Drugs, sex, bad vibes and the shadow of the Manson murders. The Eagles Hotel California makes a decadent horror movie out of this.  They stab it with their steely knives/ But they just can’t kill the Beast.

Heat Lightning uses the drone riff of the Velvet Underground’s Venus in Furs to lay the bed of a dream reverie about a succubus, a demon lover. A maelstrom rises at the midpoint to resolve with a piano phrase and it becomes a perfect little Pop tune. Mitski sounds similar in voice to Lana Del Ray. Both were choir singer in their teens.

Love Me More has some of the elements of another great New York voice. The intro echoes Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. Mitski’s voice owns this with tones that are close to bursting and release, but are just held in. She doesn’t leap like Lauper. Her high tone comes with a throaty yodel. Superior Pop music.

Should’ve Been Me. The bass guitar leading the song is pure James Jamerson. The anchor for the classic Motown singles of the Sixties. This is matched to eighties Electronica Disco. The singer is light and breathy and likes to twirl. An understated triumph.

This album steps back a little from the drive of the previous two with theatrical and cinematic tones. Mitski has also been incorporating Butoh in her stage performances, a Japanese dance tradition of more formalised movement. Rather than just leaping about, as she has commented.

That’s Our Lamp ends the album with an exhilarating finish. Personified bass and horns add Disco accents to a superior Pop tune. A break-up song. You say you love me/ And I believe you/ but it’s not like you used to. The Phantom is also on hand for those cathedral organ tones.

Mitski is a gifted songwriter and looking set to take her place in those higher realms. Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens sang David Byrne an age ago. A little bit of demon helps to open it out.

Rev Orange Peel

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