Anyone with an interest in self-help is likely familiar with the term shadow work—confronting your inner darkness to attain greater spiritual balance. The process is unpleasant. It takes nerve to probe the recesses of the mind that most of us construct entire lives around avoiding. From somewhere out of this void, Mischa Gods’, _redux’s penultimate track “deege” emerges. “Little rag doll,” Bethel asks, “are you afraid of God?” The ultimate terror, which she neutralizes with as much defiance as Dorothy exposing Oz: “I ain’t afraid at all.”
Precious few clues are pointing to the origins of Mischa Gods, the latest project of Montreal songwriter Leah Bethel, apart from two words in her Instagram bio: Leah’s shadow. The mystery softens a little once you start poking around the Mischa Gods’ extended universe, which includes a slightly bonkers website lifted straight from the defunct web hosting service, Geocities. But as compelling as her online mystique is, it was Bethel’s emotional rawness that first hooked me as a listener, and has kept my eye on her trajectory ever since.
Before creating the Mischa Gods persona, Bethel fronted the ephemeral power-pop trio Leah x The Dutchmen, flanked by bassist Hayden Farrar and drummer Matys Colpron. Bethel was the group’s main songwriter, and _redux, her debut release as Mischa Gods, was mostly salvaged from the Dutchmen’s unfinished album (with their blessing). But the name-pivot isn’t merely a rebranding exercise. I wouldn’t call it Bethel’s alter ego, either. Mischa Gods is closer to a tulpa: an entity born through unsparing introspection.
_redux kicks off in medias res with the singular power of “forget nothing.” A swampy blues riff briefly misdirects before launching into a sparkling rush of drop-tuned guitars, Colpron’s breakneck drums, and Bethel’s gritty yet ethereal vocals. Second track “lamplighter” reverse-swells into similar abandon, establishing _redux’s excellent pacing, which, even when it stops to catch its breath, never falters. On stripped-back numbers like “left” and a superb live rendition of Nirvana’s “all apologies,” Bethel’s voice is particularly enveloping. This can partly be attributed to briefly studying opera at Montreal’s McGill University, but training alone cannot account for the gravitas in Bethel’s delivery.
