Marissa Nadler :: New Radiations
Photo: Ebru Yildiz
Nashville, TN-based singer-songwriter and student of seance-inducing intensity, Marissa Nadler, has been carefully crafting her brilliantly haunting harmonies for well over two decades now. From the vapor-rich graveyards of the North to the severed soundscapes of the South, the goth-infused galaxy that Nadler has carefully crafted over the years is softly secured in the solar plexus in the disembodied human anatomy. Since the groundbreaking release of 2014’s “July”, the sophisticated songstress has been releasing her whispering works on the New York-based label Sacred Bones Records, as well as Bella Union, with a poetic precision like no other. Summoning the rapturous swells from the ocean’s ancient depths, Nadler returns to the salty surface with yet another compelling body of work titled “New Radiations.” Truly embodying the echoing energy and meditative magic of the songwriter’s metaphysical message to the world, while passing through the damp, dark dungeon hallways of some concrete castle located deep in the woods of Romania’s ritualistic reality, a merciless melody stirs the tired trees with its tonal tongue as the soothing spell evaporates across the moon’s memory. “New Radiations” willingly wanders into the numbing nothingness with biblical bravery, and a vision that burns like a fabled flame lighting the way for all to see during these dark times. While sharing a familiar foundation with lush legends such as Sibylle Baier, Nico, and Bridget St. John, to name a few, Nadler’s visceral voice vibrates a most intense frequency towards the heart of the sun just moments before shattering its cosmic core in an ocular oblivion. Throughout the album’s captivating core, a nocturnal narrative begins to unfold like a feverish flower in some gothic garden somewhere near the epic equator of space and time.
Photo: Ebru Yildiz
As compelling as a sudden snow storm blinding your path, while simultaneously isolating you deep in its glacial grip, the album’s atmospheric alchemy wraps its listeners in an electric blanket, whose comfort is both confident and mysterious, and encourages you to become vulnerable during its radical reign on your senses. With tracks like “Weightless Above The Water,” “Hatchet Man,” “To Be The Moon King,” and the album’s oscillating opener “If It Hits Harder,” a hopeful window opens up in the suffocating sky just above. Through its ethereal entrance, we may finally feel the worldly warmth of human connection, before its daring journey back into the harmonious horizon from which it came. Produced by Nadler and mixed by Randall Dunn, whose work can be heard from the likes of Sun City Girls, Earth, and Sunn O)))), to name a few, “New Radiations” effortlessly fills up the soul, while simultaneously silencing the racing mind with its lush landscapes of tonal texture, lucid layers, and melodies of macabre magic. Some have already argued that this is her greatest effort yet. While that observation may be valid, it’s important to note that this sonic specimen couldn’t exist before any other installment in her daedalian discography. Like surreal steps leading to the present moment, Nadler brings her listeners up close and personal with who’s behind the music, and the whispering wall of intimate intensity.
