MI & L’AU’s beatific backstory tends to precede them. Mira Romantschuk (aka Mi), a gorgeous waif from Finland conversant in six languages, was working as a model in Paris when she met Laurent Leclere (aka L’au), a sound-track musician. They fell in love, Mi picked up French, and together they moved to a remote cabin outside Helsinki, where they spent four years living simply. They also wrote and recorded songs, 14 of which ended up on their lovely eponymous debut, released last fall on Michael Gira’s Young God label. The tunes’ spare, delicate guitar patterns support the breathiest, most private kind of singing, and the music’s so intimate that the idea of publicly sharing it seems to be secondary. But the songs were fleshed out, lightly, by Gira, Devendra Banhart, and members of Akron/Family, among others; they added depth to the duo’s recordings with well-placed strings, banjo, and brass that didn’t cover up details like exhaled breath or a creaking chair. Mi & L’au have inevitably been pulled into the freak-folk orbit, but they combine weightlessness with a sense of focus in a way that sets them apart from their less disciplined peers.
