CD Odyssey Disc 1740: Marissa Nadler

After three reviews of early nineties records, I’m now on a 2020s streak of three, and maybe counting. Here’s the latest in the string.

Disc 1740 is…The Path of the Clouds

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover?  The bewitching beauty of Marisssa Nadler. Even on a cover that looks like a bootlegged black and white photocopy of the original (n.b. this is the original) Nadler still looks amazing.

Maybe the grey-out effect is because she’s in one of the clouds referenced in the album title. Or maybe she’s a ghost. The latter suggestion would not surprise me.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve been a Marissa Nadler fan since 2018, and this was me buying her latest record when it came out. I bought this album from Bandcamp, which is a great way to support independent artists.

How It Stacks Up: I have eight Marissa Nadler records. I like them all, but competition is fierce for my affections, and “The Path of the Clouds” could only land at #7, displacing “Little Hells” in the process.

Rating: 3 stars

Marissa Nadler started out in 2004 making spooky indie folk records. 17 years later, “the Path of the Clouds” provides a spooky folk record with a whole lot of extra production. So much so that it may no longer be folk, but when I ask myself “just what the hell is this night-tinged wonderland?” the only answer coming back at me is “folk”.

That answer lies buried under many more layers of sound than you would have encountered early in Nadler’s career, but the bones are still there. Given Nadler’s penchant for Gothic murder ballads, actual bones are not unexpected.

Case in point the first song on the record, “Bessie Did You Make it?” a song about…well…it’s a mystery. The opening stanza sets it up:

“In 1928, Glen and Bessie met their fate
From Twin Falls down the Colorado
In a handmade canoe, what happened to these two?
Is up to who you ask, but full of sorrow”

And despite various eyewitness accounts, supposition and some bones in an old boathouse, you just never know. Something terrible, dark and tragically compelling is all we’re sure of.

We’re sure of that much because Nadler’s ethereal, breathy vocals tell us tales that only the ghosts of past tragedy could evoke. Listening to Nadler is like following a will-o-the-wisp into a swamp; diffuse, dangerous and irresistible.

“The Path of the Clouds” never again lands the same level of excellence as this first-rate opener, but there are other moments worth recommending. “Couldn’t Have Done the Killing” somehow manages to make its refrain of “leave your weapons at the door” about as menacing as a weaponless room can be. You get the impression that minus guns and knives, the room in question has weapons aplenty for those who take a misstep. Couldn’t have done the killing…yeah right. When it comes to a Nadler song, someone could always have done the killing.

There is a lot of atmospheric quality to the record, and while songs tend to blend one into the other, they’re intended to do exactly that. Listening to “The Path of Clouds” is like a midnight swim in the ocean. It is the vastness of all that liquid space that creates the appeal, not any specific landmark that might distract you by day.

Listening to Marissa Nadler “singles” takes away from this magic immersive quality, and I was glad to be trapped with the record for a number of listens. While I sometimes wished for a starker, stripped-down production, over time I came to appreciate that the ambience was a feature, not a bug. On earlier records she lands the balance a bit better, and I found the low end a bit too light in the mix to hold the record in balance, but overall it was a minor quibble.

Over repeat listens I progressively let go of preconceived notions on where each instrument should be in the mix. The record is better when you surrender to this vibe and let yourself sink through the subtlety of it all. Start with Nadler’s high head voice up there in the path of the clouds and sink through the instruments to low bass notes that rumble in the deep like a drowned ghost, moaning and demanding to be heard and loved again.

Best tracks: Bessie Did You Make It?, Couldn’t Have Done the Killing, Lemon Queen 

CD Odyssey Disc 1534: Marissa Nadler

I’m just back from visiting my family out of town. When we make the trip, Sheila and I select five albums each for the car, and then alternate picking off the other person’s list as we drive. We usually get through about eight, and here are the ones we listened to this time around:

• London Grammar, Californian Soil
• Shaggy, Hotshot
• Eric B. & Rakim, Don’t Sweat the Technique
• Joe Jackson, Look Sharp!
• Leonard Cohen, Various Positions
• Jason Isbell, The Nashville Sound
• The Wooden Sky, When Lost at Sea
• The Streets, A Grand Don’t Come for Free

The trip also has a couple of lengthy ferry rides, so I had plenty of time to plug in the headphones and grok this next record in its fullness.

Disc 1534 is….  The Saga of Mayflower May

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2005

What’s up with the Cover? A portrait of Ms. Nadler in a cameo style. She looks alluring and vulnerable with a hint of danger and mystery around the eyes. This combination is also a good summation of her music.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve been digging through Nadler’s back catalogue since about 2018. Her albums aren’t always easy to find on CD, and this one eluded me for quite a while. Then a few months ago I found second-hand copies of it and “Songs III: Bird on the Water” in my local record store and snapped both of them up.

How It Stacks Up: With the addition of these latest two records (and a subsequent decision to keep “Little Hells” (Disc 1284) despite my disappointment), I now have seven Marissa Nadler albums. This isn’t all of them (she has released 10) but it is all the ones I want. Of those seven, “The Saga of Mayflower May” comes in at…#1!

Ratings: 4 stars

If Edgar Allan Poe was reincarnated as a 21^st century female folk singer, the result would be Marissa Nadler. Like Poe her work is Gothic, moody and saturated with beautiful imagery that is slightly unsettling when seen in a certain light.

“The Saga of Mayflower May” is Nadler’s second studio release. The ethereal vocals and sparse echo that made her debut, “Ballads of Living and Dying” (reviewed back at Disc 1319) so enchanting are once again present, but the songwriting is noticeably better.

The album immediately immerses you in light guitar picking patterns that insistently return to the root note, creating an effect not unlike a burbling creek flush with spring runoff.  It is strongly reminiscent of early Leonard Cohen (Nadler would go on to cover Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” on her next record).

Soaring on top of that low guitar is Nadler’s elfin vocals. These are the vocals that you imagine hearing in the wind when you’re lost in the woods, full of mystery, majesty and more than a little dread.

One of the record’s best is “Mr. John Lee (Velveteen Rose)” a complicated love triangle between the song’s titular subject, his wife Marie and a third woman telling the tale. Like a lot of Marissa Nadler songs it ends badly for everyone, but it gets there with beauty and grace. The way the first stanza practically sighs, falling on a minor note as Nadler sings “I did not care for your wedding ring/But I did care…for Marie.” you get an early sense of the regret and tragedy will envelope these star-crossed lovers.

“Damsels in the Dark” follows; a perfectly succinct 94 second ditty about loss and parting of a woman swearing off her lover and all memory associated with them. Or as she sings it:

“Photographs of your face
Against the wind
Against the rain
I'm gonna burn them all
And bury your name.”

Nadler’s imagery is highly evocative throughout. On “Calico” she sings of a woman moving to the mountains “with a box of chisels sharp” and “a box of books so dark.” We don’t know specifically how that woman’s madness and melancholy will unfurl up in some isolated cabin, but your mind wanders dark passages seeking the answer nonetheless.

Like most of the songs on the album, you are never given a full explanation of what is happening to these characters. You see it all out of the corner of your eyes, feeling the emotional undercurrent of the experience more strongly than the main narrative. The effect keeps drawing you deeper and deeper on each listen, at first to divine the narrative of the tales, but eventually just for the delight in exploring the mysteries of the heart.

Best tracks: Mr. John Lee (Velveteen Rose), Damsels in the Dark, Lily Henry and the Willow Trees, Yellow Light, Calico

CD Odyssey Disc 1319: Marissa Nadler

For the second time in the last six albums, and the third time in the last 35, I’ve rolled an album by Marissa Nadler. This is what happens when you gorge yourself on an artist’s back catalogue.

Disc 1319 is… Ballads of Living and Dying

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2004

What’s up with the Cover? “Why did we agree to take this creepy path? Now we’re lost among all these dead trees and brambles having to deal with whatever the hell that thing is.”

“Oh, no – wait. It’s just Marissa. We got separated earlier. Hi Marissa! Don’t worry – she always looks that creepy. It’s her thing.

“So…anyone bring a sandwich?”

Tragically, it was not Marissa and they were never heard from again, although this picture was found on their phone.

That’s the problem with Marissa Nadler album covers. Sometimes it looks like a vengeful spirit but it’s just Marissa in a black dress (see Disc 1314). Other times you think it’s her, but instead it’s a vengeful spirit.

How I Came to Know It: I just told this story five reviews ago, but I’ll assume you’ve never been to my blog (where the hell have you been?) and tell it again.

I heard her new album and it led me through her back catalogue. This is one of the albums that caught my attention.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Marissa Nadler albums and I’ll put this one…second, at least for now. I’ve still got two to review so while I suspect this could end up at #1, I’m leaving room for one of those to wow me.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

At the risk of sounding like a hipster douchebag, I really like Marissa Nadler’s early work. “Ballads of Living and Dying” is as early as it gets.

As Nadler’s first record “Ballads of Living and Dying” has a charm common to many first records; sparse production. Why is this so common? I suspect budget. If you don’t have money to hire a string and horn section, then a string and horn section don’t show up on the record, and if you don’t have time for a bunch of overlays and takes, then you don’t have those either. Not coincidentally, this is why a good sonnet is so powerful; when employed correctly, limitations can propel great art as much as any grander inspiration.

Despite this, Nadler has an ambience in her soul that must be expressed. With the skillful deployment of accordion, banjo and piano mixed in she manages to get her ghost on once again. However, these spirits feel like old ghosts, walking creaky floorboards in Edwardian manor houses. There is empty space for them to haunt. For all that Nadler doesn’t let them wander, keeping them confined to their rooms with tight little three- to five-minute songs.

The sparseness also let me really appreciate her guitar work. She plays most songs with a rolling guitar picking pattern that evokes Simon and Garfunkel songs like “April, Come She Will” or “Kathy’s Song”. Gentle, but urgent like a stream meandering its way through a forest. Never have apparitions felt so…comforting.

Nadler’s breathy whisper also has room to soar. Beautiful throughout, I particularly loved her adaptation of Pablo Neruda’s “Hay Tantos Muertos,” maybe in part because not being able to speak Spanish, I could just fully focus on her vocals trilling through words that sound wonderful in any language. The accordion was also pretty dope.

“Hay Tantos Muertos” is one of two poems full of death that Nadler puts to music. The other is Edgar Allan Poe’s Gothic “Annabel Lee.” Nadler gives the poem the dread it deserves but loses points in the liner notes for both mis-spelling the name of the poem (she goes with “Annabelle Lee”) and Poe’s middle name (where she opts for an ‘e’ where she needed a second ‘a’).

As you may have guessed at this point, Nadler wasn’t kidding when she named the album “Ballads of Living and Dying” although frankly, I noticed a lot more dying overall. Two of the best songs “Undertaker” and “Cedar Box” come side by side in the middle of the album to underscore this theme good and proper. It was ominous, yes, but never overbearing.

If you want a nice slow meander through some deep thinking on the subject of your own frail mortality (as I sometimes do) this is an album for you.

Best tracks: Hay Tantos Muertos, Undertaker, Box of Cedar, Virginia, Annabelle Lee (sic)

CD Odyssey Disc 1314: Marissa Nadler

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey! I’m reviewing a little less frequently these days. The good news, I get to leave for work later and get home faster. The bad news is that it shaves about 30 minutes of listening time off of my overall commute. Never fear, I remain committed to the mission – Ithaca or bust!

Disc 1314 is… July

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? What strange apparition is this? A spirit, come through the casement to fetch us all to hell?

Calm down, Logan. It’s just Marissa Nadler and some backlight.  

How I Came to Know It: I heard her new album and it led me through her back catalogue. This is one of the albums that caught my attention.

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Marissa Nadler albums. I had five, but after reviewing it back at Disc 1284, I decided to part ways with both “Little Hells” and also the majority of critics that loved it. I preferred “July” and while I haven’t given my Marissa Nadler collection the attention necessary to rank it definitively, I am feeling optimistic overall. That optimism leads me to put “July” in at #3, above at least one other selection, but behind two others. I’m not sure which is which yet – I’ll need more time to get acquainted with the other records better before I decide.

Ratings: 3 stars

Some albums just suit certain seasons, and despite its title “July” felt a good match for late autumn. The music is like a clear November day which is cold in a way that tells you it’ll soon be even colder.

“July” is relatively late in Nadler’s career, and well into the turn toward ambient production she took in 2009 with “Little Hells”. At their core these are folk songs, but Nadler dresses them up with heavy reverb and the deep thud of bass and a bit of ghostly whistling when the mood moves her.

Over this she plays very simple strum patterns on acoustic guitar and sings with a breathy semi-whispered delivery. Her voice has a sing-song quality that Nadler introduces at times as well. Imagine being serenaded by Kate Bush’s ghost and you’ll have an approximation. I felt like I was hearing songs whispered to me by spirits when I ventured into an old barn at the back of the property against my better judgment.

The album generates a wall of atmospheric sound and lets you sink into it. As an active listener I kept resisting the descent into reverie, intent on paying attention to what she was doing lyrically or vocally, but it was a struggle. It is music that is built to let your mind wander.

When I did focus, I was impressed with Nadler’s storytelling ability. Many of the songs on “July” are sad tales by damaged people not afraid to explore both their own frailties, and how those frailties translate into fragmented relationships. “Firecrackers” features all of what makes the record great. Nadler’s guitar strum is soft and somber, and her vocals high and sweet as she paints pictures like:

“I saw your face everywhere I looked, you sat across from me
Baby I'm a ghost when you're away
I told you all about my days, you told me where you lived
And we have drunk all our summers away”

Like a lot of songs on “July” the picture is painted by floating in the distance between two people, as much as the people themselves. Nadler is a master of negative space and unexpected focus. On “I’ve Got Your Name” she trades guitar strum for sparse piano and light chatter of an intermittent chorus. When she sings lines like:

“Changed in a rest stop into my dress
Be sure not to touch the floor
I've done that kind of thing before”

It’s the vastness of the story that isn’t told that draws you in, listening for more clues to what’s causing all that God-damned longing in her voice. Her characters are raw and real, but never boisterous – winning you over with their quietness and frailty.

As with “Little Hells” the songs have a uniformity that sometimes makes it hard for them to stand out, particularly given they put you in a constant state of absentmindedness. For whatever reason, it bothered me less this time around.

In fact, when I reviewed “Little Hells” I took two of Nadler’s records off my “to get” list thinking the magic was gone. “July” made me put them both back on. I won’t call it a match made in heaven, but it is definitely a date with a ghost that hopes to get there one day.

Best tracks: Firecrackers, I’ve Got Your Name, Desire, Holiday In

CD Odyssey Disc 1284: Marissa Nadler

My last review was “Hell Among the Yearlings” and this album is “Little Hells” which is the same thing if you think about it.

Disc 1284 is… Little Hells

Artist: Marissa Nadler

Year of Release: 2009

What’s up with the Cover? Marissa stares at the floor, or maybe she’s enamored with that giant brooch she’s wearing.

How I Came to Know It: I read a review for her 2018 album “For My Crimes” and I fell pretty deep, buying five of her albums in the space of about a month and a half. “Little Hells” was the last one I bought (it is an earlier record, and harder to find).

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Marissa Nadler albums. I’m not sure why, but I do. Anyway, I expected “Little Hells” to really wow me, but since it didn’t, and I don’t know the other albums very well yet, I’m going to be optimistic and say this one is #5.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Little Hells” is an ethereal album. This can make it delightfully mysterious, but it can also make it feel hard to connect with.

Marissa Nadler has a beautiful voice, breathy and filled with angst. She sounds like a fallen angel trying to sing her way back to heaven. This is what first drew me to her music, and at times captivated my attention.

This was particularly true on two songs: “Ghosts & Lovers” and “Mistress” which have the strongest songwriting and share a pale and forlorn beauty that permeates the whole record to some extent, but comes out strongest here.

“Ghosts & Lovers” is a song for anyone who has walked through the stark world after ending a relationship. Nadler evokes the image of “a family of four” walking by, underscoring the narrator’s own state of aloneness. Nadler masterfully mixes the concept of a ghost and the memory of a lover, singing:

“Ghosts and lovers
They will haunt you for a while
From the stars and from the sheets and ground”

The tune is ghostly and along with the low pronounced presence of the bass guitar will make you feel haunted.

“Mistress” – inexplicably named “Mistress on a Sunny Day” inside the CD case and by its shorter title on the back – is another tear-jerker. That said, the sometimes-mentioned “sunny day” does shine through in the melody, which has a soaring quality that lets you know better days are ahead. In this case, those better days are seen through the eyes of a mistress who has decided to no longer wait on the vain promises that her lover will leave his wife. She’s moving on and while it’s sad, it’s also triumphant.

Both songs benefit from a misty insubstantial production which works for them, but unfortunately the whole album features that same quality. Taken together there is a bit too much of the same thing. A lot of other tracks have the feel of a solid folk song that is too saturated in atmosphere and excess production. This is particularly true of “Heart Paper Lover.” This song features a Theremin recreating the sound of when the steering in your car is about to go. The first time I heard it I took my headphones off twice to locate the car, before realizing it was deliberate. In this case, deliberately annoying.

Also, while Nadler does sad very well with this much sadness on one record there are bound to be missteps. “Brittle, Crushed & Torn” is maudlin and the play on words of the song title “The Whole is Wide” is not clever enough to make up for self-conscious lyrics like “I’m more than blue/I’m violet.”

I had a lot of chores that involved long bus rides over the weekend, and I got in a lot of listens to “Little Hells,” probably six or seven although at some point I lost count. My last listen on the walk home tonight was the most enjoyable one yet. I ascribe this partly to Stockholm Syndrome, and partly to the fact that these atmospheric mood pieces benefit from a lengthy immersion. I never got tired of “Little Hells” but I also never fell in love the way I wanted.

Instead that last walk home felt like the last kiss from one of Nadler’s lovelorn characters; lingering on my lips a little too long, and a little too distant, making me realize I had never loved this music like I hoped I would. Part of me thinks Marissa would like it this way.

Best tracks: Ghosts & Lovers, Mistress (or Mistress on a Sunny Day)