Miracle Mile: Coffee and Stars (Miracle Mile)

 |   |  1 min read

Miracle Mile: Yuri's Dream
Miracle Mile: Coffee and Stars (Miracle Mile)

As with the equally wonderful Blue Nile, this UK band (of Marcus Cliffe and Trevor Jones plus guests) take a leisurely approach to albums and only release something when it is refined and ready.
Miracle Mile too work the treacherous -- and often casually dismissed -- area of "adult pop", that is music based around memorable and sometimes delicate melodies, and lyrics that don't talk down to you.
MM's lyrics are often about various conceptions of "home", finding a place in this world through love and redemption, or allusive and slightly mysterious.
There is a subtle alt.country aspect to what they do (lovely steel guitars) and delivered by Jones' remarkably smooth voice, Miracle Mile's albums have consistently won critical praise if not sales -- so you'd like to think this compilation of 18 songs drawn from all their albums might bring them to greater attention.
Certainly there is a sweetness over the long haul that some might find a touch too rich, but taken together you cannot help but be impressed by people who can write a song inspired by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin, reference John Wayne and the Guggenheim Museum, have a song (rightly) picked as one of the best of 2007 by the Sunday Times in Britain -- and still remain below the radar?
I've brought them to attention previously but this compilation available through amazon or their website gives me another opportunity.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing: Eeling (Muzai)

Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing: Eeling (Muzai)

Given their chosen name, you can guess that this Auckland four-piece don't expect (or possibly want) mainstream recognition either at home or abroad. And you don't want to know what comes up if you... > Read more

Lake South: Wellington/Te Upoko O Te Ika (Home Alone/digital outlets)

Lake South: Wellington/Te Upoko O Te Ika (Home Alone/digital outlets)

The smarter local artists realise that they need a point of difference/interest in these days of streaming where their music just exists in the endless ether of other music. So vinyl releases,... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

ALABAMA 3 INTERVIEWED (2012): Pills'n'Thrills and country heartaches

ALABAMA 3 INTERVIEWED (2012): Pills'n'Thrills and country heartaches

On paper, it doesn't work no matter which way you look at it. A sound which brings together techno-dance beats with American country music and upbeat hand-clap gospel? If you tried to sell... > Read more

JEAN-PAUL BOURELLY: JUNGLE COWBOY, CONSIDERED (1987): His avant-gotta direction debut album

JEAN-PAUL BOURELLY: JUNGLE COWBOY, CONSIDERED (1987): His avant-gotta direction debut album

In an interview with Elsewhere some years ago, Vernon Reid of the seminal black rock band Living Colour observed that once they got through the door of the hierarchy of the white rock critical... > Read more