Mia Doi Todd
Encyclopedia
Mia Doi Todd is a musician from Los Angeles, California
, United States.
Mia has collaborated with rock
, electronica
, and hip-hop
musicians, contributing her voice to works by Dntel
, Beachwood Sparks
, Nobody
, Adventure Time
, Frausdots
, Folk Implosion, The Mission
, Saul Williams
, Prefuse 73, Flying Lotus
, vosotros, Winter Flowers, and others.
d parents are sculptor Michael Todd and California Second District Court of Appeal Associate Justice
Kathryn Doi Todd
, who holds the distinction of being the first female Asian American
judge in the United States
.
Todd moved to New Haven, Connecticut
in 1993 to attend Yale University
, where she majored in East Asian Studies. Her first album, The Ewe and the Eye
, was recorded at the Spaceshed, the recording studio/garage belonging to the LA band Further
. It came out on its label, Xmas Records, in the spring of 1997, as she was graduating from college. She moved to New York City and started playing in clubs. That fall, she recorded her second album, Come Out of Your Mine
, which was released on the Communion Label in 1999.
She lived in Japan for most of 1998, studying Ankoku Butoh
first with Kazuo
and Yoshito Ohno and at Asubeustosu-kan, and then with Min Tanaka at Body Weather Farm. She speaks rudimentary Japanese
. Returning home to Los Angeles, she recorded most of her next album, Zeroone
, on a Power Mac G4
and started City Zen Records to release it in 2001.
Her first three albums were solo acoustic
recordings. She then started to play with a band, which was called Los Cincos which later renamed itself Syncopation. Todd and the group did not record much together. She signed a contract with Columbia
/SME Records
and recorded The Golden State, culling songs from her previous albums. Mitchell Froom
and Yves Beauvais helped her produce it. She recorded at the Sunset Sound Factory, and the album came out in the fall of 2002. For a year, she toured the US and Europe, on her own and then with Alaska!
and Lou Barlow
's Folk Implosion. Columbia chose at this time not to renew her contract.
Her fifth album, Manzanita, which was released in 2005, is also the Spanish name of a round-leaved bush with smooth, red bark and tiny, bell-shaped blossoms that grows throughout California
and the Pacific Coast. She recorded in Lake Hollywood with Rob Campanella
. Many of the songs were still just voice and guitar or piano. Neal Casal
played guitar, Brent Rademaker played bass as well as some guitar and piano. On drums and percussion were Hunter Crowley, Ric Menck, and Nelson Bragg. Members of Dead Meadow
and Beachwood Sparks
made cameo appearances, and the entire band—Future Pigeon
—backed her on the song "Casa Nova." Rob engineered the album and played electric guitar, piano, dulcimer, and mandolin.
An album of remixes
, La Ninja: Amor and other dreams of Manzanita, appeared in April 2006 and also had three new tracks, including a cover of the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood
."
Mia Doi Todd has worked with Dntel
on two songs, Anywhere Anyone, and Rock My Boat.
Mia Doi Todd's seventh album Gea was named as LA Weekly's Top-10 Recordings of 2008. Carlos Niño
produced with Miguel Atwood Ferguson's orchestrations. Mia toured the US and Canada as guest artist for Jose Gonzalez
.
In 2009 she released her first instrumental album, Morning Music, in collaboration with percussionist Andres Renteria.
In 2011, she collaborated with José González
on the track "Um Girassol Da Cor Do Seu Cabelo," and also contributed a version of the track "Canto de Iemanjá" for the Red Hot Organization's
most recent charitable album "Red Hot+Rio 2." The album is a follow-up to the 1996 "Red Hot + Rio
." Proceeds from the sales will be donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV and related health and social issues.
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, United States.
Mia has collaborated with rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
, and hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
musicians, contributing her voice to works by Dntel
Dntel
James Scott "Jimmy" Tamborello, more commonly known as Dntel , is an electronic music artist. He is sometimes cited as James Figurine, the co-programmer and vocalist for the electropop outfit Figurine. Other projects include Strictly Ballroom, Headset and The Postal Service. Tamborello has...
, Beachwood Sparks
Beachwood Sparks
Beachwood Sparks are an American alternative country band from Los Angeles. A Daily Telegraph article on America's underground psychedelic pop scene described Beachwood Sparks as "country through a kaleidoscope".-Biography:...
, Nobody
Nobody
Nobody may refer to:* Nobodies, a race of beings in the Kingdom Hearts video game series* nobody , the name of a Unix account which has no particular privileges* Nobody, a radio drama by Daniel Brocklehurst...
, Adventure Time
Adventure Time
Adventure Time was a local children's television show on WTAE-TV 4 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1975. It was hosted by the late Paul Shannon, with guitarist Joe Negri and puppeteer Jim Martin...
, Frausdots
Frausdots
Frausdots is a band from Los Angeles, California, USA. The band consists of Brent Rademaker, formerly of The Tyde and Beachwood Sparks, and Michelle Loiselle, a former backing singer for Guns N' Roses, Carl Tapia, Roger Brogan, Exiquio Talavera and David Baum....
, Folk Implosion, The Mission
The Mission (band)
The Mission are a gothic rock band formed in 1986 from the splinters of the freshly dissolved rock band The Sisters of Mercy.The band was started by frontman Wayne Hussey and bassist Craig Adams , soon adding...
, Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Prefuse 73, Flying Lotus
Flying Lotus
Flying Lotus, is an experimental multi-genre music producer from Winnetka, California. His debut album, 1983, was released on Plug Research Records in 2006...
, vosotros, Winter Flowers, and others.
Biography
Doi Todd's divorceDivorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d parents are sculptor Michael Todd and California Second District Court of Appeal Associate Justice
Associate Justice
Associate Justice or Associate Judge is the title for a member of a judicial panel who is not the Chief Justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the United States Supreme Court and some state supreme courts, and for some other courts in Commonwealth...
Kathryn Doi Todd
Kathryn Doi Todd
Kathryn Doi Todd is an Associate Justice of the California Second District Court of Appeal, Division Two, having been appointed to the post by Governor Gray Davis in 2000....
, who holds the distinction of being the first female Asian American
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
judge in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Todd moved to New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
in 1993 to attend Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where she majored in East Asian Studies. Her first album, The Ewe and the Eye
The ewe and the eye
The Ewe and the Eye is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 1997 by Xmas Records.-Track listing:# "Digging"# "Planting Time"# "Stoke the Fire"# "Blue Moon"# "True Love"# "Hills on Fire"# "Nightblooming Trilogy"# "Courting"...
, was recorded at the Spaceshed, the recording studio/garage belonging to the LA band Further
Further (band)
Further was a United States indie rock band from Los Angeles, California, that evolved from an earlier band, Shadowland. They released several albums during the 1990s.-History:...
. It came out on its label, Xmas Records, in the spring of 1997, as she was graduating from college. She moved to New York City and started playing in clubs. That fall, she recorded her second album, Come Out of Your Mine
Come out of your mine
Come Out of Your Mine is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 1999 by City Zen Records.-Track listing:# "Independence Day" - 4:41# "Strawberries" - 3:13# "Jackals" - 5:51# "Save Me" - 2:07# "Hijikata Tatsumi" - 3:02# "Your Room" - 2:52...
, which was released on the Communion Label in 1999.
She lived in Japan for most of 1998, studying Ankoku Butoh
Butoh
is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup...
first with Kazuo
Kazuo Ohno
was a Japanese dancer who became a guru and inspirational figure in the dance form known as Butoh. It was written of him that his very presence was an "artistic fact."...
and Yoshito Ohno and at Asubeustosu-kan, and then with Min Tanaka at Body Weather Farm. She speaks rudimentary Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. Returning home to Los Angeles, she recorded most of her next album, Zeroone
Zeroone
zeroone is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 2001 by City Zen Records.-Track listing:# Digital# Poppy Fields# Obsession# Ziggurat# Bound Feet & Feathered# Merry Me# Can I?# Amnesia# Like A Knife# Tugboat...
, on a Power Mac G4
Power Mac G4
The Power Mac G4 was a series of personal computers that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple between 1999 and 2004. They used the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors. They were heralded by Apple to be the first personal supercomputers, reaching speeds of 4 to 20 Gigaflops...
and started City Zen Records to release it in 2001.
Her first three albums were solo acoustic
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
recordings. She then started to play with a band, which was called Los Cincos which later renamed itself Syncopation. Todd and the group did not record much together. She signed a contract with Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
/SME Records
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
and recorded The Golden State, culling songs from her previous albums. Mitchell Froom
Mitchell Froom
-Career:Froom began his career as a keyboard player in Sonoma County, California. The band Crossfire featured two keyboards players; Mitchell on one side of the stage and brother David on the other with Gary Pihl on guitar...
and Yves Beauvais helped her produce it. She recorded at the Sunset Sound Factory, and the album came out in the fall of 2002. For a year, she toured the US and Europe, on her own and then with Alaska!
Alaska!
Alaska! is an indie rock trio from the United States. The band was formed in San Francisco by Russell Pollard , Imaad Wasif , with Lesley Ishino later joining as drummer.-Discography:The band released their debut album, Emotions, in 2003, and a second, Rescue...
and Lou Barlow
Lou Barlow
Louis Knox Barlow is an American alternative rock musician and songwriter. A founding member of the groups Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and The Folk Implosion. Barlow is credited with helping to pioneer the lo-fi style of rock music in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
's Folk Implosion. Columbia chose at this time not to renew her contract.
Her fifth album, Manzanita, which was released in 2005, is also the Spanish name of a round-leaved bush with smooth, red bark and tiny, bell-shaped blossoms that grows throughout California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and the Pacific Coast. She recorded in Lake Hollywood with Rob Campanella
Rob Campanella
Rob Campanella is a musician, best known as a Los Angeles producer, engineer, and member of The Quarter After.-Producer, Engineer:Rob has produced and engineered albums for his own band The Quarter After, and for clients including Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Tyde, Beachwood Sparks, Goldrush, ...
. Many of the songs were still just voice and guitar or piano. Neal Casal
Neal Casal
Neal Casal is an American songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist and photographer who has maintained an acclaimed solo career as well as playing guitar for The Cardinals.-1990 - 1999:...
played guitar, Brent Rademaker played bass as well as some guitar and piano. On drums and percussion were Hunter Crowley, Ric Menck, and Nelson Bragg. Members of Dead Meadow
Dead Meadow
Dead Meadow is an American hard rock band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1998. Currently comprising vocalist and guitarist Jason Simon, bassist Steve Kille and drummer Mark Laughlin, the band has released five studio albums and one live album.-Biography:...
and Beachwood Sparks
Beachwood Sparks
Beachwood Sparks are an American alternative country band from Los Angeles. A Daily Telegraph article on America's underground psychedelic pop scene described Beachwood Sparks as "country through a kaleidoscope".-Biography:...
made cameo appearances, and the entire band—Future Pigeon
Future Pigeon
Future Pigeon is an American punk/dub band from Los Angeles, California, contemporary to the late 1990s and early 2000s.-History:Future Pigeon are an award-winning underground band from LA; they are often associated in performances with other more famous members of that scene such as the late...
—backed her on the song "Casa Nova." Rob engineered the album and played electric guitar, piano, dulcimer, and mandolin.
An album of remixes
RemixeS
RemixeS is a compilation of French singer Mylène Farmer's singles by various famous DJ's, including JXL, Felix Da Housecat and Paul Oakenfold.-Brackground, writing and release:...
, La Ninja: Amor and other dreams of Manzanita, appeared in April 2006 and also had three new tracks, including a cover of the Beatles' song "Norwegian Wood
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
"Norwegian Wood " is a song by The Beatles, first released on the 1965 album Rubber Soul....
."
Mia Doi Todd has worked with Dntel
Dntel
James Scott "Jimmy" Tamborello, more commonly known as Dntel , is an electronic music artist. He is sometimes cited as James Figurine, the co-programmer and vocalist for the electropop outfit Figurine. Other projects include Strictly Ballroom, Headset and The Postal Service. Tamborello has...
on two songs, Anywhere Anyone, and Rock My Boat.
Mia Doi Todd's seventh album Gea was named as LA Weekly's Top-10 Recordings of 2008. Carlos Niño
Carlos Gabriel Niño
Carlos Gabriel Niño is an internationally celebrated producer, arranger, composer, musician, radio host, DJ, music consultant, writer, poet, and event organizer, based in his hometown of Los Angeles, California. He has been an important force in the contemporary independent music scene for over 15...
produced with Miguel Atwood Ferguson's orchestrations. Mia toured the US and Canada as guest artist for Jose Gonzalez
José González
José González is a Swedish-Argentine indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist from Gothenburg, Sweden.González is also a member of Swedish band Junip, along with Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn.- Biography :...
.
In 2009 she released her first instrumental album, Morning Music, in collaboration with percussionist Andres Renteria.
In 2011, she collaborated with José González
José González
José González is a Swedish-Argentine indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist from Gothenburg, Sweden.González is also a member of Swedish band Junip, along with Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn.- Biography :...
on the track "Um Girassol Da Cor Do Seu Cabelo," and also contributed a version of the track "Canto de Iemanjá" for the Red Hot Organization's
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
most recent charitable album "Red Hot+Rio 2." The album is a follow-up to the 1996 "Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio is a compilation album produced by Paul Heck as part of the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series intended to promote AIDS awareness. This installment is a contemporary tribute to the Bossa nova sound, especially the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim...
." Proceeds from the sales will be donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS/HIV and related health and social issues.
Albums
- the ewe and the eyeThe ewe and the eyeThe Ewe and the Eye is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 1997 by Xmas Records.-Track listing:# "Digging"# "Planting Time"# "Stoke the Fire"# "Blue Moon"# "True Love"# "Hills on Fire"# "Nightblooming Trilogy"# "Courting"...
(1997) - come out of your mineCome out of your mineCome Out of Your Mine is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 1999 by City Zen Records.-Track listing:# "Independence Day" - 4:41# "Strawberries" - 3:13# "Jackals" - 5:51# "Save Me" - 2:07# "Hijikata Tatsumi" - 3:02# "Your Room" - 2:52...
(1999) - zerooneZeroonezeroone is the title of an album by Mia Doi Todd, released in 2001 by City Zen Records.-Track listing:# Digital# Poppy Fields# Obsession# Ziggurat# Bound Feet & Feathered# Merry Me# Can I?# Amnesia# Like A Knife# Tugboat...
(2001) - The Golden State (2002)
- Manzanita (2005)
- La Ninja: Amor and other dreams of Manzanita (2006)
- Gea (2008)
- Morning Music (2009)
- "Cosmic Ocean Ship" (2011)