As unfair as it is, only a few artists can rely on the grace and elegance of their own stripped-down acoustic performance to move an audience. Many singer/songwriters beat their proverbial heads against the wall trying to create the mysterious and intimate relationship with listeners that their contemporaries -- like Indie-pop darling Elliott Smith and brooding songwriter Chan Marshall (Cat Power) -- seem to so naturally create. Mia Doi Todd takes her place at the side of such luminaries, relying on haunting, spacious atmospherics to create soul-stirring, hypnotic music. Slightly dissonant notes on the acoustic guitar are plucked with the delicacy and patience of a serial killer; her voice hanging above like an apparition, narrating the procedure.
