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Morning Music is the first album of instrumental music from Los Angeles based songstress Mia Doi Todd. Morning Music was recorded and mixed by Mia at her Chateau des Chats studio in Los Angeles and features her on drum, harmonium, piano, tin whistle, tamboura, acoustic guitar, bongos, being joined by Andres Renteria on tracks 3 and, 6 playing cajon, piano, wooden stool and udu, The album is being released on City Zen Records this Spring distributed by Revolver USA.
"Morning Music is a good way to start the day, though it's not just for the morning. It's music to listen to while cooking dinner or making a list of things to do or taking long, deep breaths in downward dog or for writing your first screenplay."
"I started recording the tracks that became "Morning Music" while I was writing songs for my last album, Gea (City Zen, 2008). Lyrics are the most challenging part of songwriting for me, and I was enjoying recording instrumental improvisations as a break from singing and songwriting."
"I was borrowing a friend's tamboura at the time, an Indian instrument shaped like a sitar but with no frets and only four strings, and I had just found my first harmonium, a small pump organ also from India. Classical Indian music is my favorite thing to listen to in many moods and occasions, and I started to experiment with these drone instruments and the transcendental experience they can produce while playing or listening to them."
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"I had just finished a tour with the Swedish psychedelic rock band Dungen and was feeling the influence of their captivating melodies and great musicianship. I started playing the Irish tin whistle and using that as a melodic and emotional element instead of my voice, freeing me up from what felt like the confines of words."
"My home studio along the LA River is known amongst friends as the "Chateau des Chats." Many birds nest along the river-- egrets, blue heron, cormorants, ducks, swallows. The tiny birds like to spend the morning chatting in the trees by my fence. I took to recording them and the noisy traffic passing along the bridge. In Electrafficbirds one and two, I combined these environmental sound recordings with simple piano and tin whistle lines that play around each other like the birds' dialogue."
"Andres Renteria, my longtime music collaborator, plays with me on tracks 3 and 6, and these are the most complex of the songs on "Morning Music." We both play piano on those two tracks; I added guitar and tin whistle, and Andres the percussion. Samai'i is a traditional Middle Eastern rhythm in 5 or 10 that Andres plays on the cajon, a wooden box-shaped drum popular in Cuban music. On track six, Emotion, he plays the udu, a West African drum made of clay. All of these pieces evolved spontaneously without an end in mind."
"I began to edit and sculpt the recordings into a series of simple organic tunes. I gave the album to a few friends who enjoyed the calm and meditative attitude which it evokes. They also found the music very conducive to their creative endeavors. I am glad now to share the music with a larger audience."
You can see and hear Mia at myspace.com/miadoitodd and www.miadoitodd.com where she posts information about upcoming performances.
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