Review Summary: Sometimes you have to lose your voice before you can find it.
Rarely will you find a tongue-in-cheek album name that is as heartbreaking as
Mia Gargaret. What could easily be written off as a twee indie title is saturated with meaning. After a fairly acclaimed debut, Gia Margaret became ill and lost her voice for almost half of 2019. This would be devastating for most people, but especially for a singer-songwriter who prescribed mainly to lo-fi backings and let her pleasing voice and lyrics shine. When Gia lost her voice, she also lost her livelihood and her sense of self, feeling as though her life had been completely flipped backwards - hence
Mia Gargaret. What she did not lose, however, was her ability to create gorgeous compositions that have now become the forefront of her work. She may have lost her voice, but Gia Margaret found a brilliant new sound.
Mia Gargaret is almost entirely instrumental, filled with beautifully accessible ambience that conjures up a hazy dreaminess and is incredibly easy to get lost in. While
There’s Always Glimmer, her debut album, certainly made proper use of synth, it still fell undeniably on the folk side of the spectrum. That could arguably be the greatest criticism of her debut album - It never seemed to give in to it’s more creative inclinations, which is far from the case on the follow up. While Gia could have easily been excused for wanting to take time off to craft new music, she instead made the album that it seems like she always wanted to make, although with obvious changes. Her vocals are gone, replaced with glimmering synths and piano, and her acoustic guitar makes an appearance in only one song, largely serving as an additional accoutrement as opposed to the driver of a melody.
The brilliance of
Mia Gargaret largely is the fact that even though it doesn’t rely on traditional song structures, it is still largely melodic. The entire album is a perfect mix of melancholic longing for the return of her voice, but also the hope that she has in knowing that it will return. This isn’t a series of aimless songs that seem as though they are missing a voice, but they also aren’t a collection of songs created by a person who decided to make an ambient pop album. Even though the transition between sounds wasn’t planned, it seems entirely intentional. That isn’t to say that her voice isn’t welcome in the brief closing track “lesson”, as it serves as the emotional payoff of the experience.
Mia Gargaret follows Gia Margaret’s journey - It begins with “apathy”, where a sample from her voice therapy is used, and ends with a “lesson”, which finishes with a fadeout that seems as though it will transition into the next phase of whatever Gia’s life will bring.
