“This is a real sad one, but it’s in a major key,” Marissa Nadler told the audience before playing “You Called Her Camellia” during her recent appearance at the Songbyrd Music House on Valentine’s Day. The sad part describes much of her catalog, which combines folk, gothic Americana (she participated in an album of Townes Van Zandt covers), and dream pop textures to ethereal, haunting, and deeply moving effect.
The set was spare: just Marissa on guitar, mostly electric, accompanied by another guitar — and gorgeous.
A caveat to this review: I lost my phone before the show (it turned up the next day), and I had a bit of a panic attack. The panic attempt did me no favors with the sinus headache I was already fighting. Marissa’s music was profoundly beautiful, and it helped soothe my anxiety, but I wasn’t as locked in as I hope to be, and I had to duck out early because of the pounding in my head. I did especially enjoy “Dead City Emily.”
Raised in small-town Massachusetts, Marissa pursued painting, eventually studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. She also taught herself to play guitar and began to write songs. Over the course of her career, she’s progressed from bare-bones, entirely acoustic recordings, to more expansive production that includes electric elements, synthesizers and more, while consistently maintaining a noirish orientation.
“You Called Her Camelia” appears on Nadler’s most recent album, last year’s self-produced New Radiations. At Songbyrd on Feb. 14, her set included a few more songs from the album — the title cut, “Smoke Screen Selene,” the chilling murder ballad “Hatchet Man,” “Light Years,” and album closer “Sad Satellite.”
Watch the official music video for “New Radiations” by Marissa Nadler on YouTube:
Her set included just as much older material, beginning with the set opener, “My Little Lark.” “Drive” is a powerful song about just how hard it and discouraging it can be for artists trying to make it, and the music business has only gotten harder since she wrote and released it. “All Out of Catastrophes” strikes me, perhaps in an odd way, as optimistic, as I believe that the catastrophes never run out it and they’re always just around the corner. I’m a lot of fun at parties!
The music Saturday night — as I mentioned, just two guitars — managed to be spare yet cosmic and otherworldly, even psychedelic, at times. It was music fit for the darkness of winter night, strangely comforting even its deep melancholy. I wouldn’t quite classify Nadler’s music as experimental, as it employs traditional melodic and lyrical structures, but her sound does lean in that direction, which opener Maria BC embraces even more fully. Her set largely consisted of material she’s recorded for an upcoming album, so it was new to me.
I suppose this might not be the music everyone would choose for a Valentine’s Day evening out with their girlfriend, but we loved it. Infer what you will about us from that, but Marissa’s music is almost heartbreakingly beautiful, and it really expands the possibilities of what folk and Americana music can be.
