New York’s Holly Miranda today releases Golden Spiral, the latest new track to emerge from her forthcoming album release Mutual Horse, due out on February 23, 2018 through Dangerbird Records. Her first release since 2015, ‘Mutual Horse’ is Holly’s fourth solo release since emerging on XL with her much-praised 2010 debut The Magician’s Private Library. Listen to Golden Spiral, below!
Speaking about Golden Spiral Holly says; ‘This track started as a loop I made and was messing around with in my bedroom in the East Village. My best friend, Ambrosia Parsley, came over and heard it and almost immediately sang that opening line, ‘Ride your pony down the block and tie it up outside of 7-11’. Ambrosia grew up in Reseda, California (the deep valley) in the 70’s and her friend Tiffany had a horse named Honey. Ambrosia used to ride on the back, picking plums and oranges off the trees that hung over peoples fences along the way. Then they would tie it up outside 7-11 and get coke Slur-pees. Also, her neighbour really did make ‘sexy movies’.
When I went to LA to work on the record at Dangerbird Studio, our balcony overlooked a seedy corner store. So I would sit up there with my pen and paper and watch all the people coming and going, definitely witnessed a few drug deals, what have you. That’s where I finished the song. It’s one of my favourites on the record. Especially Maria Eisen’s saxy space jam!’
With support from collaborators including My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Nova, TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone, Grandaddy/Modest Mouse’s Jim Fairchild and Built To Spill’s Matthew Morgan amongst others, it’s Miranda’s astonishing singing vocal that is set free, elevating this collection of songs as no one else could. Miranda takes an honest and intimate approach, while maintaining her sense of humour amidst sonic explorations.
The Dangerbird studio in LA also inspired the album’s title – Mutual Horse comes from this image we hung in the studio. It was a photo of the singer-songwriter Cris Williamson – ‘We printed out photos of her from the 1970s and taped them up around the studio; that was our vibe.’ One of those photos was of Williamson and another woman holding the reins of a horse; the two women are staring at each other, but the horse is staring at the camera. Eventually someone scrawled the phrase Mutual Horse beneath the picture. ‘It doesn’t feel like just mine,’ Miranda says of the album, which took its name from the graffiti. ‘It feels like it belongs to everybody who worked on it. I opened myself to collaborating this time around, which made me really vulnerable.’
Miranda grew up between Detroit and Nashville, two music towns that would influence her own journey in a very profound way. She began playing piano at the age of six, taught her self-guitar at 14 and moved to New York at 16 to start her professional career. For nearly 20 years, she’s been performing, writing and producing with some of the best talent in the business. She has performed with the likes of Karen O, Lou Reed, The XX, and Lesley Gore. She released two records with her band The Jealous Girlfriends and has co-written and produced a mass of other projects.