Marissa Nadler has long been one of the decade’s most consistent and compelling folk artists, reaching new heights with 2007’s Songs III: Bird on the Water. Her latest release for Mexican Summer, March’s Little Hells, is even better still — brooding and swirling, the record finds the singer-songwriter both distilling her poetic language and introducing a new lushness to her traditional dreamscapes. Skipster recently spoke with Nadler about this musical evolution, her recurrent autumnal themes, and — perhaps surprisingly — the absence of one “Sylvia Plath” from her writing process.
Skipster: Your live shows often mix up arrangements and delivery — “Heart Paper Lover,” for instance, seems sultrier than on the record. Do you find that you’re constantly going back to your material and finding new ways to interpret it?
Marissa Nadler: I am highly engaged in the evolution of the songs. When you play 60 shows in a row or however many each tour has, it is important to still “feel” them so you aren’t a dead weight robot going through the motions. Even if there is just one person in the audience that wants to hear a song, it’s important to try your best to bring it to them fresh. On Little Hells, I play the Wurlitzer and there is a Theremin going on in the background to recreate the sounds of sirens and the sounds of what I envisioned as the end of the world. It’s hard to bring both of those things on the road (as well as the end of the world) so I have recreated the song with more of a groove to it. My current band (Ben McConnell, Carter Tanton, Jonas Haskins) had much to do with how the song sounds right now live. I like to do it both ways.I still enjoy playing the song soft and acoustic. Sultry, huh…
S: You’ve spoken elsewhere about listening to and being influenced by Beach House’s Devotion during the recording of Little Hells. Can you speak a little more specifically to this?
M.N.: That was just one of the records that I was listening to at the time because it is absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn’t call it an influence as much as a part of the soundtrack to my life during that time. Truly, I listen to very little contemporary music and tend to live in a bit of a box, hermetically sealed, in order to write purely. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Sammi Smith and Timi Yuro, and very old female country singers and their sad old ways. I was dark and lonely during the period of writing this record. There is no other way to say it. I do love Beach House though and think Victoria has an incredible voice that floors me every time I hear it.
S: Little Hells mixes your sonic palette up a bit. Was this change intentional, or did it happen unexpectedly?
M.N.: It was very intentional. I wanted to mix it up. Little Hells is my fourth full length release since 2004 and I wanted to try something new. The structure, content, and vibe are all still there. I wanted to take this music beyond the folk medium and try out what I had dreamed of for many years. I wanted to do more vocal layering and harmonies and create deeper atmospheres to escape to.
S:How do you think these changes reflect your evolution over the last few albums?
M.N.: The writing is not using so many poetic devices to get my point across. I am being more direct and more confessional and less shrouded in code. I felt like there was nowhere left to hide. Naked.
S: How does your writing process usually work? Do you start with music or lyrics, on piano or guitar, etc.?
M.N.: I always start picking on the guitar and I will get a melody and words in my head simultaneously. I try to go with the flow and write whatever comes into my head, no matter how strange it seems. Songs like Box of Cedar, and Mary Come Alive, and Sylvia- I had no idea where those came from until far after the fact. Often times I do feel like I am overcome by some kind of spirit when I write songs because they will come out of nowhere. I try not to suppress that imagination or taint it. I try to travel with the muse.
S: Likewise, does song sequence carry a lot of importance for you? Why end with “Mistress” (listen below)?
M.N: Song sequence matters sonically, and also with subject matter. The last lines in Mistress “goodbye misery, letters on the line,” indicate that at least for the time being, I have pinched up with clothes pins my misery. It’s hanging out in the summer sun. When It is dry I think I will fold it up and put it in a treasure chest. I have new things to write about.
S: Some of the new songs seem to have a semi-religious bent — references to hells, rosaries, spirits, resurrections. “Little Hells” even seems a sort of mission statement for the album. Can you talk about this?
M.N.: The religious imagery are things I am drawn to, more aesthetically. Really the record is a loosely based concept record about one woman, call her me, or just some random protagonist, living out many different outcomes for her life. In each song, this woman meets a different fate and decides to do something different with her life. I think it was an appropriate record for me to make at the time of my Saturn Return. In Rosary, she is an old crone. In Heart Paper Lover, she is so old she is near death, lamenting on how she got to this point of tending the garden and hearing sirens in her head all day long. River of dirt is a present tense song for how I was feeling at the time I wrote it. We never ran away- and idealism turns to reality in most of these songs. Only Mistress has a happy ending, and that is the last song on the record.
S: Similarly, the character Silvia is a recurrent one, now leaping across several albums. Is she someone specific to you?
M.N.: I can’t really say exactly. Certainly not Sylvia Plath- just to clarify. In many ways, she is an archetype.
S: You’re one of the few artists I think of as distinctly “of New England.” Do you see your region as influencing your perspective at all?
M.N.: Well, I am certainly not from California. We had seven feet of snow this winter and last winter was hard as well. It keeps you inside. The landscape is bleak and there is a lot of history, from the old Victorian houses, to the skeletal dead trees. I think it influences the way that I write about nature.
S: You’ve just finished another US tour. Have there any been any standout experiences or places of particular inspiration?
M.N.: I just finished one month in US and one month in Europe. I had a great show in San Fransisco and a great show in Seattle. New York. I mean- its a good show for me when I can not get nervous. After so many shows, I still struggle with stage fright and nerves. So, If it comes off smoothly enough, I am happy.
S: Next you’re touring Europe. Are the reactions abroad somehow different? Do you find your music “specifically American” or not?
M.N.: Well, I am going back to Europe for a bunch of summer festivals, including Roskilde. I think that my music has a lot of Americana but also there is the genetic memory of my eastern european background that I do believe in.
S: Speaking of inspiration, what other working songwriters are you paying attention to right now?
M.N.: I love Camera Obscura, Alela Diane’s Headless Heroes release…lots of stuff.. I need to start listening.Loving Sammi Smith, Tammy Wynette, Neil Young, Gram Parsons. I could go on and on and on.
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Marissa Nadler , “Mistress” off the album Little Hells
Michael Spreter, photo: Sean Griffin
