In 2002, Todd’s musical horizons expanded immensely upon signing to the prestigious Columbia Records’ subsidiary Columbia Jazz. During her brief tenure there (Columbia Jazz soon closed their doors) she released one intricately composed and lavishly produced album, The Garden State. Todd then moved on to the boutique electronica label, Plug Research, to record the experimentally tinged Manzanita (2005) and an album of remixes, La Ninja: Amor and other dreams of Manzanita (2006).

In March 2008, Todd will release her seventh full-length, Gea on her own label (City Zen Records). Gea takes equal parts from the minimalist first half of her career plus the more experimental and lavish songs of the latter. Meditating on the organic vibes of peace and love, Gea exists as a nonviolent attack on the noise, war and destruction engulfing us today.

Comparisons to Chan Marshall (Cat Power) seem too obvious; maybe at this point in the game, as Todd matures and proves time and time again that she is willing to take chances and dive headfirst into uncharted musical terrain (unlike most of her more timid female peers), Yoko Ono would be more precise.

The Los Angeles Journal spoke with Mia Doi Todd about peace, politics and creativity as she prepared for her upcoming Los Angeles performance on December 12 at Tangier.

Los Angeles Journal: How has the current political climate influenced your songwriting?

Mia Doi Todd: My last album, Manzanita, has an overtly political theme. On [Gea], I digested all of that information and nothing had changed at all, which made me feel very hopeless. So the attempt for [Gea] was to absorb the creative energy of the earth - Gea being the female, more peaceful and loving, creative energy - and find hope. You can [interpret] my songs in either a microscopic or macroscopic way. They could be about a couple or two nations having a battle of some kind. “In the End” [from Gea] was a response to things in my own life, first of all, and secondly the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when the [U.S.] government just couldn’t meet the needs of the people and turned a blind eye towards them. So, “In the End” could be Mother Nature speaking to humankind about the impending ecological disasters. Humankind is really not seeing this or doing anything about this. We are just speedily heading towards disaster; yet Mother Nature is still loving…still loving.

LAJ: Can you as a songwriter help slow down the timeline of the impending ecological disasters or, better yet, put a halt to it?

Todd: I feel very hopeless about that sometimes. But I just saw this documentary, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, and it was so inspiring. It really set a fire under me to do what I can through song. Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and the folk movement played a big part in ending the Vietnam War. I have always thought that you can reach a lot of people through song. And if you’re touring, you get to see real situations; you get out of the bubble of your own community. LA doesn’t represent the United States as a whole, and certainly not the world as a whole. You get to be this traveling bard who exchanges information. You have the opportunity to speak to young people who will be living in this world a long time, if it lasts. With my music, I don’t think it’s all overtly political; but just being sensitive and having an individual viewpoint is important these days. Mass media is attempting to homogenize the cultural landscape; just having that individual voice makes me feel like I am doing something positive. In [the song] “Gea” there is a line, “freedom from oppression, self-expression for everyone everyday’” - that is an ideal to me. It’s sort of a mantra if you repeat it enough. Positive thinking can go a long way. It would be so easy for many governments to take a stronger and more positive role in energy policy and begin to have an immediate impact. It’s not too late. It is hard for a singer-songwriter like me to do too much; it is the political leadership, leadership that needs to do it. Being a role-model as a musician can be a great thing, just to inspire people to feel empowered in their own life; but it is up to the higher powers to make the changes.

LAJ: What effect do you want to have on your audience?

Todd: It would be nice if I could open up a bit of their mind and/or soul and create a meditation space where they can see things in their own life for a moment more clearly. There’s so much noise and distraction in the world. My music is intended to be calming and settling.

LAJ: Do you meditate?

Todd: I do.

LAJ: How often?

Todd: Not enough. I aspire to meditate a lot, every day. I do a lot of yoga, which is a moving meditation. And I sit and breathe, and I have a special meditation cushion that I sit on.

LAJ: How does meditation influence your creative process?

Todd: My creative process usually comes in spurts. Sometimes I need a long time to not be creative in order to gather energy. Right before I wrote most of the songs on Gea, I did a short meditation retreat at Green Gulch Farm, a Zen center just north of San Francisco. We were meditating quite a lot, rising every day at 4:00 a.m. to meditate for two hours. Everything there, including cooking and working on the farm, is a form of meditation. It was my birthday present to myself. It was so invigorating. I came back and wrote all of these songs. I thought I had nothing to say. Before that point I was ready to give up music. I had a bunch of guitar parts, but nothing to say. I came back from the meditation retreat and bam, bam, bam, I was ready to record Gea a couple months later. So meditation must have a great creatively invigorating effect!

LAJ: Which comes first: lyrics or music?

Todd:  Usually I find things I like on the guitar, and I find progressions and then melodies reveal themselves. Then I “la, la, la” sing along with my guitar. It takes a while to be able to sing while playing guitar, so I find ways and rhythms that work. Then I try to find a phrase that fits in that particular meter perfectly and that leads to eventually finding a verse or a chorus. A song can write itself very quickly once you find certain inroads.

LAJ: At what point do you decide its time to record the song(s)?

Todd: I’m so old-fashioned. I like to know all the chord changes, all of my lyrics and how long the instrumental parts will be. I’ve always written all of the songs and felt like I had an album, I even ordered the album, before I tried to record it. Then I would record for just a couple weeks.

LAJ: Is there a particular author that influences your lyrics?

Todd: Yeah, Hemmingway was a big influence on Gea, especially for the song “Sleepless Nights.” I was really into Hemmingway last year; I read everything I could find by him.

LAJ: What is your attraction to Hemmingway?

Todd: The way he gets to the heart of interpersonal things so concisely and linguistically. I could identify with a lot of his characters and his point of view.

LAJ: Is the sadness in your songs directly related to your life?

Todd: Sometimes, but as you said earlier, the situation in the world seeps down into your psyche very easily. I’m mourning for the loss of species and all sorts of things…

LAJ: What role does your stage performance take in your music?

Todd: [Performing] has always been my favorite part. I feel like more of a live artist than a recording artist. I’m much more comfortable with things being infinite. When you sing the song live, you don’t have the pressure to get the best take ever. It depends though, I’ve had terrible times performing for audiences that really didn’t care; drinking and talking at the bar very loudly. Sometimes it can be a nightmare. But it can also be such a beautiful thing. To change the atmosphere in the room, to make it a sacred space, to make something happen in the minds and hearts of the audience is powerful. Live music can do that in a way recorded music cannot. Just like seeing a movie in the theater, even though it’s cheaper to rent the movie at home. It’s the experience.

LAJ: Will you be performing solo?

Todd: No. This is special because for the last couple years I’ve been playing with a percussionist, Andres Renteria. He and I have really worked well together, we have a great musical camaraderie. Our great friend and violist, Miguel Atwood Ferguson (who also did the arrangements for and played [viola and violin] on Gea) will be playing with us also. That will be a real treat for us. He adds so much. He is so sensitive and so talented. This will be only the second time that I’ve played live with him.

LAJ: Gea is scheduled to be released in March 2008. Do you consider it to be a seasonal, Spring album?

Todd: There are some songs on Gea for each season. People have often associated my music with autumn; it is melancholy and reminiscent of how you feel when the wind gets chilly and the leaves fall. On Gea, “Big Bad Wolf” is an autumn song but “River of Life” may be more of a spring/summer song. When I was making Gea, I didn’t want to make any more sad records. I was trying to have this feeling of rebirth for myself as well as the audience. That is what people need at this time, to have this feeling of hope.