Very often, you simply can’t get away from your roots. Michael Gold, who now operates under the moniker of Mirror Tree, started out as an airline pilot (which he still is, it seems), but at some point had to try his hand at music.
After all, his mother is one Sharon Robinson, singer and songwriter, who for decades collaborated (and co-wrote songs) with Leonard Cohen, Gold’s godfather.
Even though he studied jazz and classical piano, Gold didn’t devote himself to music seriously for quite a while, but the pull of his heritage and imagination led him to really devote himself to it now, coming up with his self-titled debut as Mirror Tree.
Whatever he learned from his mother or godfather is somewhere there, but Gold seems to have more seeped into all forms of psych-pop, the original, mid to late sixties kind – whether it is that of the West Coast sound, the British Isles one, or the Brazilian Tropicália, with Ennio Morricone creeping up in there somewhere (try ‘Carefree’ here).
Eventually, Gold and his main collaborator here, Filip Nikolic from his initial band Poolside came up with a set of songs that are fully formed, based on truly strong songwriting and musical presentation, coming up with one of the better modern psych-pop albums of the year.
