Marissa Nadler

I saw Marissa Nadler last fall, opening up for The Valerie Project. At the time, I didn't much care for her. She stood on the stage alone with her guitar (with backup vocals from an anonymous female on a select few songs) and played repetitive songs that didn't tend to go anywhere or do much of anything, that all sounded exactly the same. Her stage demeanor suggested a really ditzy version of Joan Baez. I had the vague (and vaguely sexist) feeling that she wouldn't have been on the stage if she wasn't so amazingly gorgeous.

I sat twiddling my thumbs for 45 minutes waiting for it to end, and assumed I'd never think about her again after it was over.

So I was somewhat surprised when, in my recent internet browsings, I came across a couple positive reviews of her new album, Songs III: Bird on the Water (I have no idea what happened to Songs I and II). Everything written about it is sure to mention that it was produced by Espers' Greg Weeks, and that most of Espers show up playing something or other. Reading that is when I decided I needed to hear it, of course. (My Espers obsession is well-documented here, if you have the patience to look.)

Well, here's what I think: Marissa Nadler is still kind of boring to me. Most of the songs still sound the same, and most of them still seem to kind of float around waiting for something that never happens. However, I don't dislike her, and I really liked some of the songs. I have a feeling that if I listened to it in the right mood, or by myself in the dark late at night, I might enjoy it. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt that maybe it's a grower, and I haven't been with it long enough yet.

Greg Weeks, meanwhile, is well on his way to making a nice second career for himself as the producer of choice for the psych-folk set. His work here is more subtle than on last year's Fern Knight album, Music for Witches and Alchemists (not to mention Espers II), and more in the background. It doesn't seem like a "Marissa Nadler and Greg Weeks" album, the way the Fern Knight album kind of sounded like a "Fern Knight and Greg Weeks" album. He still shows up a few times with his fuzzed out Les Paul for some psychedelic guitar work, exploring the notes in between the notes like a rudimentary John Coltrane (and it's still hard to tell sometimes if that's intentional or if he just records all his parts in one take without having played the song before), but the songs never take a backseat to that the way they do sometimes with Espers (and really, that's just a whole different aesthetic and musical philosophy at work). And for the most part, everything is quiet and low key, with barely-there splashes of organ and synth augmenting things. In short, the album sounds great.