By Danica Li
We guess it’s typical that Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn would write a batch of songs, group the songs into an album, and then name the album something pretty much incomprehensible. (a)spera (K), her first release in a near half-decade — wasn’t it just yesterday that Mirah arrived on the scene, a bright-eyed, scampering young up-and-comer? — is the Latin stand-in for hope or adversity, depending on how you interpret the handy parenthetical tacked onto the beginning of the word. With her restrained instrumentation, acoustic pop smarts, and whimsical inspirations, Mirah’s records are as oddly accessible as they are born of arcane esoterica: 19th-century French naturalist writings inspired her multimedia endeavor Share This Place: Stories and Observations (K, 2007), a concept album about the lives of insects.
Small town heroine or not, Mirah’s discreetly built something of a national following. Back before she’d even released an album, she used to play gigs with a full band at weddings and bar mitzvahs for extra monies, but that fledgling project fell to the wayside when she decided to do her own thing. That involved a bit of lo-fi futzing around, a couple of forays into riot grrrl bristling, and a lot of sparely beautiful acoustic sessions with just her guitar — Liz Phair knock-off dismissals be damned.
Mirah was MIA for the better part of the mid-2000s, in terms of solo recordings. She spent the time tinkering with an impressive number of side projects, including collaborations with the Microphones’ Phil Elverum and Black Cat Orchestra, plus the provision of an entire soundtrack for the documentary Young, Jewish, and Left. She also used to tour with the Microphones, but now she’s split off to do her own thing again. No insect noises this time, but the release of (a)spera lands her at Bimbo’s 365 tonight.
MIRAH
With Tender Forever and Leyna Noel
Tues/7, 8 p.m. (door: 7 p.m.), $16
Bimbo’s 365 Club
1025 Columbus, S.F.
(415) 474-0365
www.bimbos365club.com