Mirage Blood For The Return

Mirage is the project of 19-year old Los Angeles native Robin Nydal; Blood For The Return is the first collection of his songs. He's been labeled as a "soft-prog impresario" for the scrappy yet highly intricate compositions that weave between solo recordings and collaborations with guest musicians. The instrumentation sidesteps that of the traditional guitar/bass/drums rock band and includes piano, cello, viola, violin, oboe, and timpanis. ARI BALOUZIAN’s lush arrangements of these orchestral elements throughout the record complement Robin's densely layered vocal harmonies. Mirage has already earned favorable comparisons to prog-leaning songwriters of yesteryear like Robert Wyatt, Van Dyke Parks, and Peter Gabriel as well as contemporary eccentrics such as Animal Collective. Pitchfork's Jayson Greene said it "recalls what a Grizzly Bear demo might sound like that had spent the last ten years buried in someone's vegetable garden." Growth and decay are indeed essential themes to these songs and to quote Robin himself: "this album is a reflection of the other side of love and what it means to fall in and out of it."