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Mi And L'au | Review
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Illinois Entertainer | Trevor Fisherthe most obvious example of music imitating environment that has ever been put to tape Mi and l'au preview Mi, L'au, Everyone, Wednesday February 1, 2006Empty Bottle, Chicago Saturday, February 4, 2006 Mi & L'au's story is every music PR person's wet dream. As the story goes, the couple met in Paris, where the Finnish Mi was working as a model and the French L'au was working in the music industry. They immediately fell in love and moved from place to place in Paris before deciding to give up everything and retreat to a cabin tucked away in a the isolated woods of Finland. Apparently they live as simply as possible: depending on only the barest essentials and spending nearly every minute making music together. The duo's eponymous debut on Young God may be the most obvious example of music imitating environment that has ever been put to tape. Recorded at their cabin and cloaked in desolation, the 14 songs are so delicate it almost feels like the CD would shatter in its player if there were to be, God forbid, a thump of the drum. But there are no drum beats, and really, there isn't......
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Mi and L'au | Review
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Courier Journal/Louisville, Kentucky | Paul CurryLove is kind Saturday, January 21, 2006 Special to The Courier-Journal Mi and L'au are a husband and wife from Finland who took to writing and recording their strange little love songs while "isolated together in a cabin," according to the press blurb. There's a picture of a lovely little snow-covered cabin on the cover of the disc. There's another cabin picture on the back, but this one seems to have been taken in the springtime; everything looks damp and loamy. Left to their devices, the couple have made a freaky, intimate collection of songs. Their voices are both clear and bright (she tends to whisper some; he tends toward Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen at times), and their accompaniment is initially traditional, relying primarily on acoustic guitar. But once we start catching the lyrics and the various production touches (bubbles, banjo, harmonica etc., most likely added during sessions in Brooklyn with Michael Gira, who is given credit as co-producer), we move into a realm that is as curious and strange as the giddiness of young lovers and as dark as the longest night in winter. In "Christmas Soul," the female, Mi, is singing "Death will......
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Mi and L'au | Review
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www.terrascope.co.uk | Alan DavidsonI'd suggest you make tomorrow the day you nip out and buy this CD! MI AND L'AU - SELF TITLEDLast summer I had the very great pleasure of seeing Mi and L'au on tour with Josephine Foster. The audience was extremely quiet and respectful, almost to the point of being mesmerised, and when the first song ended the duo quickly began the next, without applause. Having accepted this as the natural course of events, the same thing happened after every song! Apparently Mi and L'au were becoming increasingly worried that the audience didn't like them, but the thunderous applause and standing ovation that followed their last number must have set their minds at rest. This release almost has the same effect...it certainly arrests attention, almost whispering in the listener's ear. Much of the sound is sparse, and, appropriately enough the bones of the album were put together in a small isolated cabin in Finland, where the pair live. There is a feeling of slowly thawing sexuality, and small lights in empty darkness. Additional instrumentation was added by members of Akron/Family and Antony and the Johnsons, and it's been done tastefully, allowing the songs plenty of room to......
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Mi and L'au
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Philadelphia Inquirer | A.D. AmorosiMi and L'au find depths of intimacy Posted on Thu, Jan. 19, 2006 Even if you didn't know that Mi and L'au were a couple - so went the hype preceding their appearance Tuesday night at World Cafe Live - you'd have to guess at something going on between them. You could tell by the way they gazed at each other during brief interludes, the way their reed-thin bodies huddled throughout their creeping, intimate ballads, songs so subtle and sparse they seemed an afterthought. You just wanted to tell the Finnish Mi and French L'au - ever so quietly - to get a room. If not quietly, you'd be heard above their spooky, folkish meditations, sketchily plucked, lyrical paeans to isolationist romance (they moved to Finland's chilly woods to be alone) that made a lovely counterpoint to the thrumming of rain and the rumble of trains passing by the cafe. While their acoustic guitars plucked a mix of classical and flamenco-imbued melodies - playful songs such as "Merry Go Round" - the couple's voices gently touched on how philosophers move, how clay sets. Before you could say "yeesh," though, the duo sturdily described all sides of......
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Mi and L'au | Live Review
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The Big Takeover | Dave Heatonevocative, dreamy musicMi and L'au with Lewis and Clarke - World Cafe Live (Philadelphia) -Tuesday, January 17, 2006 23 January 2006 The smaller upstairs room at World Cafe Live seems at first like an awkward place to watch bands play. It's set up like a restaurant, with dinner served at tables to the concert-goers who want some orange-ginger swordfish and wine to go with their music. You come in the door and are greeted like you're in a restaurant, not a club "would you like a table for one, or is a seat at the bar OK?" On this quiet, rainy Tuesday night, though, the odd yet still laidback mood of the place ended up seeming just right, particularly given the gentle (and odd) nature of the music. And the venue's impeccable sound system made me understand how important sound can be: Right from the start, the music sounded amazing. I usually only pay attention to sound if it's noticeably bad, but I kept thinking that even bands I hate might sound half-way decent with this set-up (though the truth is probably the opposite‹crystal-clear sound would accentuate their faults, not hide them). LEWIS AND CLARKE......