Mia Dyson

Mia Dyson is on the road. Yeah, we know she's been there since she was 19, but with her third album, Struck Down, she's no longer looking back. It stretches forever in every direction. It's no longer possible to define her by the Australian bush home she left behind, or by how long ago.

"The last three years have been revolutionary for me," she says. "I finally feel like this is my place, that music is my thing and I'm in love with being a musician. I feel like I'm past the doubt, the struggle. This is what I do."

Struck Down is an album about finding your place in the wide world and simultaneously getting lost in it. It's a mature, contemplative surrender to chaos and beauty, confusion and clarity, sadness, strangeness, and to the rich traditions of roots Americana that first made her dream.

Mia's revolution has been both public and private. To the world at large, it began with a nationally televised milestone, the 2005 ARIA Award for Best Blues and Roots Album for her second album, Parking Lots. (Her debut, Cold Water, had been nominated in '03).

In a sense, the other bookend to that red-carpet arrival was her invitation to open for one of the household names of the blues, Eric Clapton, across Australia in early '07. That summer, Mia played to the largest audiences she's met since she picked up her first home made guitar at the age of 14.

Her profile was also boosted by a song on the soundtrack to the acclaimed Australian feature film, Look Both Ways, and an invitation to join Deborah Conway's collaborative singer-songwriters' roadshow, Broad.

Meanwhile, her personal trophies were accumulating somewhere slightly to the left of the mainstream spotlight. Opening for Bonnie Raitt on her recent tour of Australia was a more personal affirmation of Mia's path.

"She was a childhood hero, very much a part of why I play music," she says. "It closed a circle for me, cause Bonnie Raitt was the first concert my Dad (Victorian luthier Jim Dyson) took me to when I was 12.

Perhaps the biggest milestone was Mia's first American tour of June/ July '06. "I've grown up on songs about those places, that countryside; American movies, music: roots music, blues, soul, country, gospel . . . I've got an almost nostalgic feeling for America. When I went there, it was all confirmed for me."

With her past and present, dreams and reality in harmony, Mia checked into a quiet cottage in Lorne, on Victoria's windswept south coast, to define the next step in her extraordinary journey.

Struck Down was again co-produced with Lloyd Barratt, but a new rhythm section seals an advance in her musical convictions. Drummer Angus Diggs had carved a formidable reputation with Jeff Lang, Don Walker and Wilson-Diesel. A new bond was strengthened when he recommended bassist James Haselwood midway through the Parking Lots tour.

"I wanted a band that was deeply into the kind of music I wanted to make," Mia says. "As a trio it's not like they're in the background and I'm up front, it's a lot more intimate than that. They bring in a really unique and exciting feel but also a passion for this music. It makes it very different.

From the first, keening chords and windscreen-wiper rhythm of Struck Down, the band's feel and passion are indivisible. It's a song of everyday wonder that sets the album's warm, wood-grained tone and theme of dawning discovery.

"There's definitely a theme of journeys, driving, being alone," Mia reflects. "Struck Down is about grasping the scope of the world you live in as opposed to just looking at the steering wheel, being open to everything out there."

The album's emotional panorama ranges from the half-amused caution of People Will Turn On You to the hypnotic voyeurism of Cars Fly By to the near hysterical venting of World's On Fire – songs respectively inspired by Australian tabloids, American gas stations, and everything under the sun.

For the first time, too, Mia truly surrendered her songs to the sublime talents of her guest players: that's Garrett Costigan (Tex Don and Charlie) playing pedal steel; Matt Walker plays harmonica on Heavy and lends his voice to Cars Fly By; Steve Grant plays horns, accordion and piano, Jodi Moore (of Dirty Lucy) plays viola and Carl Pannuzzo sings back up.

In various permutations, they borrow a little of The Band's loose, rolling, back porch vibe, or some of Little Feat's restrained soul in the album's only cover, Long Distance Love. They also know when to stand back, most obviously for Mia's solo acoustic take of With The Blue Sky, with nothing but the creek behind the house for accompaniment.

"As a listener, I don't need dancing tunes, I don't need entertaining tunes, I like emotive tunes," she says. "It doesn't matter if a whole record is slow for me, as long as it's pulling me in.

From the rollicking waltz of Never Felt Young to the climactic lament of My Country, Struck Down is an album that pulls you in and takes you for a ride. And this is just the beginning.

"I feel like I've written some of the best songs I've written," Mia says. "I've made a few steps forward and I've taken a couple of steps back. I feel excited that I've progressed as a songwriter, but mainly I've reaffirmed that I can keep going."

Struck Down is out independently August 25th 2007, through MGM Distribution.
Cold Water (Shock Records) and Parking Lots in stores now independently through  MGM Distribution.

Taken from Mia Dyson's Official website: http://www.miadyson.com