Marissa Nadler - Marissa Nadler

  by Andrew Carver

published: 8 / 7 / 2011

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Marissa Nadler has been charming listeners through a series of albums that are coming more and more to resemble an extended song cycle, following the lives of recurring characters. With her gorgeous mezzo-soprano and lilting fingerpicked guitar, her work has been one of beautiful simplicity, a pinnacle among modern weird folk. With her fifth “official” full length (a couple of tour albums and a covers album also lurk in her discography), Nadler has expanded on her music by recruiting likeminded souls such as Helen Espvall and Orion Rigel Dommisse to fill out her sound. ‘In Your Lair, Bear’ starts the album out with the solitary guitar and liquid voice of Nadler but a third of the way in steel guitar rises to envelop her vocals, and soon enough a pinpoint piano and violin join in. That’s not to say Nadler has recruited an orchestra - on ‘Alabaster Queen’ there’s little more than her delicate strumming and voice pledging eternal love. On the other side of the coin ‘The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You’ is practically a country-western tune (in a good sense), with hearty strumming, pedal steel, a full drum kit and bass. Nadler also revisits a few characters from previous albums, with ‘Mr. John Lee, Revisited’ recasting the earlier murder ballad ‘Mr. John Lee (The Velveteen Rose)’. ‘Baby, I Will Leave You in the Morning’ is only one of several tunes involving people leaving or disappearing in Nadler’s catalogue, but this time it is the singer herself holding the spotlight in a smoky, Dusty Springfield style tune begging for her freedom. The vague, synthetic noise wiggling behind her vocals must be her first foray into electronic sounds. ‘Puppet Master’, a co-write with Carter Tanton of Tulsa, finds Nadler still in thrall, and not regretting it as much as she might want to. The upbeat tune gets a jazzy touch thanks to some xylophonic percussion. ‘Wind Up Doll’ shimmers with cymbal and brushed drums and Nadler’s Crystalline voice, while ‘Wedding’ is backed by a wobbling tone that makes a fine counterpoint to her sultry voice which promises to wait for the object of her desire. ‘Little King’ takes things back to Nadler’s past for a tale of a lovelorn acquaintance (one with a fondness for Bibles and rifles), and gets a bit of an old-time feel thanks to a few spurts of banjo. ‘In A Magazine’ gets another full-sounding treatment, with Nadler putting a bit of a slur on her words and like ‘The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You’ sounds like something that Lee Hazlewood might have written for Nancy Sinatra. Nadler wraps things up with ‘Daisy, Where Did You Go?’ Like 'Mr. John Lee Revisited’, it seems to resurrect a character from an earlier tune, in this case from ‘The Story of Daisy and Violet’. The missing Daisy expired in the previous tune alongside her sister Violet, but appears to still be around, at least in spirit, keeping company with Nadler’s “phantom limbs and eery hymns.” Although Nadler is one of those performers who could sing the phone book (do they still have those?) and make it sound enchanting, the fuller arrangements on her latest album add some pleasant gilding.

Track Listing:-

1 In Your Lair, Bear
2 Alabaster Queen
3 The Sun Always Reminds Me Of You
4 Mr. John Lee Revisited
5 Baby I Will Leave You In The Morning
6 Puppet Master
7 Wind Up Doll
8 Wedding
9 Little King
10 In A Magazine
11 Daisy, Where Did You Go?

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