Private Playlist: Mia Doi Todd Recommends Space-Age Sounds And Brazilian Tunes
Speaker 1: 00:00 California's second month of quarantine as well underway and even after all the live streamed concerts and DJ sets, maybe you're still feeling a little burned out on your music collection. Well, to help KCRW invited some of their favorite local musicians to share what they've been playing at home. It's a new series kcrws private playlist. Today we spend some time in the listening room with Mia DOI Todd. She's an LA native who's released 10 albums under her own name and collaborated with countless others. Speaker 2: 00:37 Hi, this is Mia DOI Todd. I'm a singer songwriter from Los Angeles. We've been sheltering in place here at our home since March 12th I was super stressed out about this new record I've been trying to make before this all started. We were in the final stages of mixing and the craziness that descends upon one when you're trying to finish up a record. And then this happened. I felt so relieved that I didn't have to deal with it for awhile. One of the big challenges has been keeping my daughter engaged and exercising during this shelter in place time. So we have a trampoline in the backyard and we set up a little sound system, a PA in the backyard so that we could play music back there and get her excited and we go on the trampoline and and turn on some Gregory Isaacs. Her favorite Gregory Isaacs track is called if I don't have you. And it's kinda like it's about her, but it's about everybody. Whoever you sing it to Speaker 3: 01:44 [inaudible] they never get safe. But please do as you should. [inaudible] no, no. Speaker 2: 02:09 We don't have a super high fire system. We have like a technics table and then we have these old wooden speakers. I think they're from the seventies so we definitely have a vintage sound going on in the living room. We recently moved most of the vinyl back into the living room and set up the turntables there in a more functional way and we've been enjoying pulling them out and listening. Speaker 3: 02:39 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 02:40 I've been wanting to listen to Milton Nascimento, this Brazilian artists that I really love and he for me is like the voice of mother nature and the way that humans are a part of mother nature. Speaking. Milton has a self titled album that he recorded in Los Angeles actually in Malibu in 19 six. Wayne shorter's on that album, Herbie Hancock, it's more a jazz record and Milton's voice is so beautiful and um, it just gets to the heart of emotion and intuitively Speaker 3: 03:51 [inaudible] Speaker 2: 03:52 I've been enjoying sitting and knitting the last couple of weeks and listening to music, you know, putting on whole albums like I used to do on vinyl and listening to side one and then listening to side two and maybe then listened to side three and four, just taking the time that I haven't had the chance to. And it's a way to like look inside yourself and uh, I've been enjoying that introspection. There's another artist that I really love. [inaudible] there are so many emotions going through me every day about the situation we're in. And I've been going back to Brazilian music over and over again for that complexity of emotion. And in car Tolas music, I hear all the, the longing and sadness and happiness and expectation and in every note of his voice, and there's a song I love called precedes me. And Contra on a self titled album of his from 1976. Speaker 4: 05:17 [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 05:24 I've also been really into Laraaji's essence universe album. For me, the music of Laraaji is very cosmic and universal. It's like a teaching kind of music, a healing kind of music. He has another album called vision songs, and it has all these inspirational kind of sutras, you know, and uh, there's a certain song on vision songs. It's a version of his own Namah Shivaya. Speaker 3: 06:34 [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 06:50 There's another album, not very well known called [inaudible], like the secrets of the plants. It's by DeRosier Marcus and other Brazilian artist. It's a very long and dreamy album and I could listen to that over and over again. That's a gorgeous one. Speaker 3: 07:22 [inaudible] that Speaker 1: 07:29 was musician Mia DOI Todd speaking to KCRW from her home in Los Angeles. Links to the songs you heard can be found on our website. kpbs.org.
