**300 copies ** "Every so often, the cosmos graces us with a chanteuse in possession of otherworldly inflections. Can you remember the first time Vashti Bunyan’s lilting voice kissed your ears? Or the moment when you knew that you needed Linda Perhacs’ Parallelograms to resonate inside your home? Did you feel a lightness in your heart when Elisa Randazzo brought Bridget St John back into the fold? Have you ever sat spellbound in the presence of a Meg Baird performance? Did the hair on your arms stand on end upon your introduction to Sandy Denny’s Fotheringay?
If you can answer, “Yes” to any of these questions, Caira Paravel’s debut album Mirror Mirror awaits you. It is a garden of canticles, seeded from the spores of song banks, rich with history and lore. Her rendition of Winds In the East from the 1964 soundtrack to Mary Poppins sets a spritely tone before her honeyed timbre mingles with a Mellotron on a resplendent rendition of Lal & Mike Waterson’s Fine Horseman.
Paravel’s timeless take on Arthur Lee’s Andmoreagain is so gorgeous, it would sit well alongside Fairport Convention’s 1970 performance at Maidstone. She turns Donovan’s Lord of the Reedy River into a bewitching ballad, replete with spry flute notes that dance around like butterflies before inviting sitars and chimes into the layered tapestries of Joan Baez’s The Magic Wood.
Both the powerful title-track and the kaleidoscopic Love Bird were written by San Francisco musician / composer / producer Walker Phillips, who also recorded and mixed Mirror Mirror on analog tape, after it was tracked in a small cabin nestled in the Mendocino woods of Northern California. The Incredible String Band once advised us to be glad, for the song has no ending. With that in mind, Mirror Mirror is the kind of rare gem that you’ll want to spin on an infinite loop. Or at least until Paravel graces us with a second album." - Eric Shea