Like
To All We Stretch the Open Arm
,
Mirah
's collaboration with
the Black Cat Orchestra
Share This Place
begins with an interesting concept that becomes something richer than might be expected. This time,
works with
Spectratone International
, an ensemble formed by former
Black Cat Orchestra
founder and cellist
Lori Goldston
and accordionist
Kyle Hanson
, on a song cycle about the lives of insects.
is also part of a larger work that incorporates short films by stop-motion animator
Britta Johnson
, and the entire project was inspired by the writing of 19th century entomologist and poet
J. Henri Fabre
, as well as
Karel Capek
's
The Insect Play
. Paired with
Johnson
's films and in their own right,
and
's songs are intricate and beautifully made, giving a larger scale to the big events in these tiny lives -- birth, death, mating, eating, sacrifice, survival -- while keeping the details that make them fascinating. Musically,
is exotic yet friendly, nodding to the gypsy tendencies in
's music since
You Think It's Like This But Really It's Like This
. Monarch butterflies migrate to an elegant
tango
on
"Following the Sun,"
while
"My Lord Who Hums"
delves into hypnotic
chamber
-
psych
rock
.
and company do a brilliant job with their insect portraits, making their words and music fit each of their subjects.
"Song of Psyche"
's lyrics are especially inspired, pairing the myth of Cupid, Psyche, and Venus with the elaborate mating rituals of moths.
is often quite witty, but its humor is always instructive: the comically doleful
"My Prize"
is a reminder that the dung beetle's diet might be disgusting to others but is also extremely useful ("who else but I and my brethren would save this world from suffocating under all this waste?").
"Credo Cigalia"
's perky melody and rattling shakers mimic how annoying the cicada's song can be, but its lyrics show how hard the bug works to have its buzzing moment in the late summer sun. While the album's conceptual nature might seem aloof on paper,
has surprisingly emotional moments, as on
"Ecdysis,"
which follows a caterpillar from pupa to butterfly and features some of
's most impassioned singing, and
"Love Song of the Fly,"
which captures the anguish of a dying fly trapped in flypaper, lured to its end by its unrequited love for a human.
fans expecting another
Advisory Committee
might be a little disappointed by
at first, but its charming fusion of science, poetry, and music, and its clever ways of showing that very different types of life can share this place in harmony, should win them over in the end. ~ Heather Phares