Mirah C'mon Miracle LP (Sea Blue Vinyl)

C'mon Miracle, Mirah's most critically acclaimed album, is finally back in press on vinyl. Receiving the "best new music" tag, Pitchfork said about the album, "C'mon Miracle is it. Mirah, it appears, has made the album we've been waiting for." Offered on color vinyl for the first time, C'mon Miracle will resonate with fans today as much as it did nearly two decades after its initial release.

Something gentle this way comes in the form of Mirah and her third full-length album, C'mon Miracle. Many of her friends lend a helping hand, strumming the autoharp and bowing stringed instruments, accompanying the lilting, soaring voice that can not be mistaken: it's Mirah! She's come up with a whole new batch of songs, which though short on fanfare they are long on solidity, pianos, drummers and the importance of standing up against oppression.

If her first album, You Think Its Like This but Really It's Like This, snuck up and surprised you, then her second album Advisory Committee stunned you with cannon fire, then sit back and relax as C'mon Miracle washes over you, its subtle ways etching itself into your psyche. It's not big, it's impressive. Mirah recorded most of C'mon Miracle at Dub Narcotic Studio with Phil Elverum (The Microphones, Mount Eerie), Emily Kingan, Calvin Johnson, Susan Ploetz, Aaron Hartman, Ramona Tougas and plenty more players and helpmates who knew how to make it hot, coolly. Two of the songs here were recorded in Argentina with Bryce Panic (former drummer with Old Time Relijun) making controlled patterns of delight. The combination is always special-feeling, while never veering from the realm of Mirah sounds. They're the best type! And here's a whole album filled, so C'mon Miracle and get into it.

The album winds down quietly, almost apologetically, as if seized by second thoughts about its own catchiness. But these songs need no apology - C'mon Miracle is not a crass bid for popularity, just an organic shift towards pop idiom. I hope that Mirah herself doesn't view it as a compromise or a concession; from here, it just looks like growing up.