The reveries of Marissa Nadler assume the form of alternately distressing and endearing songs. Nadler wreaths her staid, bewitching voice through a finely spun garment of carefully plucked melodies, low-skidding bass and reverbed synths, which drape the pieces in an evocative layer of dissonance. Though the symptom which quilts these pieces and holds them together is loss, be it in the form of death or despair, her works don’ seek a heavenly sensuality, nor do they open up an ‘other scene’ – rather, her dark folk compositions, in all their poetic depth and transient shadowy elegance, press her to common concerns and achieve more of a general aestheticisation of everyday life. This approach leads these dismal atmospheres to occasionally sound glaringly contrived. At the same time, numerous other works, such as ‘Bird On Your Grave’ with its naked singing and the faux-mediaeval balladry of ‘Thinking Of You’, divulge the universal as simply a quality caught up in the ball of yarn that is the particular.
The album is indeed the most well-rounded from Nadler. Asides from the fact that soft dissociative notes, prickly chimes and zither-like strumming of organ chords all seem to cohabit many pieces while not marring their refined sense of delicacy, Nadler is also able to include some softly dissonant counterpoints into the proceedings. Perhaps chief amongst them, the stinging electric guitar of Greg Weeks pierces the languid atmosphere of the aforementioned ‘Bird On Your Grave’ at dramatic intervals. For all that, such contributions sometimes come across as decoration rather than expressive imperatives. Wisely, these inclusions are kept to a minimum, thus enabling Nadler to maintain a certain distance from those of the new folk clique. This particular tale grows dark with the arrival of ‘Leather Made Shoes’, as the music slows down, and Nadler’ voice sounds like some beautiful death rattle while skeins of luminous sound trail behind on a lower subplane. It’s these moments that linger, moments when Nadler gently guides a few chords into gorgeously lonely phrases.
Max Schaefer
