‘Gea’ is the seventh album from Californian, Mia Doi Todd, which, coming at the age of only 32, is pretty impressive. For those unfamiliar with her work, she is somewhat of a musical renaissance woman, a self-proclaimed singer-songwriter-guitarist-poet-painter-dancer. With her career to date representing a nomadic journey, both geographically and in terms of record labels worked with, this album was self-produced in collaboration with Carlos Nino (one half of Ammon Contact) & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and recorded in Todd’s native Los Angeles. The music is very much organic, one woman-and-her-guitar, story-telling Folk, accompanied only, if at all, by some ultra light bongo tapping. But the truth is that it’s really rather good and never ventures into tedious or twee territory, which is always an inherent risk. Certainly worth seeking out, particularly if you’re a fan of the likes of Juana Molina.
