Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water
The rising popularity of digital music storage programs and online facilities, have enabled artists, and their fans, to bracket music so specifically, it is almost impossible to differentiate between contemporary genres. This can go either two ways, as far as I can see, listeners can conform to these abstract labelling techniques, or decide on perhaps ten standard genres of music and label their collection and the artists they come across in those ten categories. I can see advantages to both methods, and although I am a keen collector of music, old and new, I am more interested in how the music sounds as opposed to struggling with the dilemma of not knowing whether to place the artist under, say, 'freak-folk' or 'anti-folk'. I use folk as an example as there seems to be an enormous surge of modern musicians, and fans alike, placing work under such categories. But from the dreamy 'indie-folk' of Sufjan Stevens to the ripe 'celtic-folk' of Joanna Newsom, these tangled modern genres seem to find a place in my music collection.
The first time I heard the music of Marissa Nadler was only a short time ago, I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of her ‘Ballads of Living and Dying’ album in Kraków for ten zlotys. Marissa’s latest album ‘Songs III: Bird on the Water’ is equally as beautiful and dramatic as her previous work. Her brave and sweeping vocals are reinforced musically by twelve string guitars, banjos and keyboards among other instruments, and her creative and imaginative song writing capabilities allow the listener to be taken on a timeless journey of American gothic fairytales that are entwined with fictional characters and mystical settings. As you may have guessed from the title of the first album I mentioned, Marissa’s lyrics are not the most upbeat, although they are solemn and do frequently flirt with a hint of hidden joy, as best expressed in ‘Rachel’, “oh what a day to dance with you, oh what a day to die” Marissa sings coldly over a soothing acoustic melody. Marissa also uses a lot of reverb and echo in her vocals which may be compared to the earlier recordings of Great Lake Swimmers, who recorded their debut album in a grain silo, however the flawless scale and delicacy of Marissa’s voice make her style desperately organic and difficult to compare to other artists of equal calibre.
Starting my supposed ‘listeners account’ by ranting about the complexities of categorising modern music may have been an absurd thing to do, but the diversity and the assorted styles that Marissa Nadler has composed in her latest offering are indeed difficult to shelf and I find that can interfere in the musical experience for today’s new generation of listener. ‘Songs III: Bird on the Water’ is a folk album, it is one of the most beautiful and significant folk albums I have ever heard and has genuinely touched me.
