Mirel Wagner
Flannery O’Connor, a writer familiar with the weight of darkness, described the look of a dying woman as one “of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored but who finds the light unbearable.” The music of Finnish singer-songwriter speaks to a similar knowledge: that light and dark cannot exist without each other, that one is not inherently more valuable than the other, and that the combination of the two is what measures a life.
As is implied in the title of her second album, When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day, Wagner makes haunting, revelatory music for hidden places. Her gentle, unembellished voice and bluesy acoustic guitar are as simple and superficially soothing as lullabies at first listen, but her subject matter is decidedly not for children, and the sleep toward which she sings is not temporary.
Opening track “1 2 3 4” starts with the line, “1 2 3 4 / What’s underneath the floor?” — and perfectly frames the album’s mission to exhume what usually stays buried. The song follows in the footsteps of “No Death,” a love song housed in necrophilic terms from Wagner’s 2012 debut. (Which should also provide a hint as to what lies underneath the floor.) To the same degree that she sings for hidden places, Wagner sings for the dead; as a songwriter, she seems interested in digging past the heart of any matter and into bone. Floorboards can’t keep secrets, death can’t stop love, and squeamishness won’t save you from knowing what you’d rather not know.
“I got a big big heart and lots of love, and it’s hard,” Wagner sings later in “1 2 3 4.” In the same way that confronted the murder-ballad tradition in this year’s “The Body Electric” by singing to a ballad’s victims, Wagner aligns herself with subjects that are forgotten or ignored, intentionally or otherwise. Having a big big heart and lots of love isn’t easy when you vow to love what’s largely considered unlovable. Bringing darkness into light, and shedding light into the dark, may feel as unbearable as Flannery O’Connor described. But the dedication to doing both quietly and beautifully is a specific ecstasy in which Mirel Wagner excels.
Mirel Wagner – The Dirt August 12th, 2014 Sub Pop debut album, When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
Taken from self-titled debut album which is available in Scandinavia via Kioski Rec, the rest of Europe via Bone Voyage and out March 27th in North America via Friendly Fire Recordings.
Music video by Aki Roukala
Friendly Fire Recordings is an independent record label founded in 2004, with offices in San Francisco and New York City. We love music!
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