I was once told that the first duty of an artist, regardless of his or her discipline, was to grow and to evolve.
If that truly is the measure of an artist, then Brooke Miller has done what her craft demands of her. With each new recording she has built on the promise of her 2003 debut release, Lending An Hourglass. She has consistently taken her music to a higher level, experimenting with new sounds, new instruments and new ideas.
That was the case with 2007’s critically acclaimed You Can See Everything.
And it is very much the case with her much-anticipated new record, Shake it Off, which is slated to have its P.E.I. launch at The Guild Saturday Dec. 11.
Shake It Off, which marks Miller’s debut as a producer, features eight new songs and a fine new live recording of Jericho, a track from her debut album, which was engineered for this record at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio by Ron Skinner.
The new tracks were engineered and mixed by Miller’s husband, guitar virtuoso Don Ross, at Hurricane Sound Design in Halifax.
Listening to some of the lyrics Miller penned for this record, I am reminded of the title of a song Joni Mitchell penned for her 1972 record, For The Roses.
The song is Woman of Heart and Mind and it makes me think of Mitchell not because of its lyrical content but because I believe it describes Miller’s songwriting to perfection.
She is indeed a woman of heart and mind. Her songs speak on an immediate level to your heart but they also linger in your head long after you’ve tucked the CD back in its jacket. They also make you think about just what it is she’s trying to say about matters of the heart, about her perception of the world around her, about the kinds of people who populate that world and about those things which give life meaning.
