Songs III: Bird On The Water, by Marissa Nadler (CD on Peacefrog)

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Format:	CD
Label:	Peacefrog
Price:	£11.99
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What we say

Rating: happy This record left our Phil feeling happy.

Swiftly moving on to the delightful MARISSA NADLER who's third album 'Songs III: Bird On The Water' sees the light of day thanks to those folks at Peacefrog. Who've clearly done so well with Jose Gonzales they're mopping up the singer songwriter market and you really couldn't knock 'em for that. The album opens with the fantastic Diamond Heart which is vintage Marissa. You can't fault that tune. As you progress through the album you'll notice it's considerably more hi fi than previous releases. In fact it's completely polished and pristine sounding which has taken something away from her winning formula. Her songs are still fantastic though and it features Greg 'Espers' Weeks on there as well as other folk types. The more I hear it the more I like it but I still think it's not a patch on The Saga of Mayflower May which is such a shittingly good album it hurts. Mind you I'm a total twat so what do I know.

What the label says:

Marissa’s first CD of home recordings 'Ballads of Living and Dying' (Eclipse Records, 2004) was a release that Pitchfork called “a landscape you may want to get lost in for a century or two” and The Wire called “a beauty”. A second album of home recordings, ‘The Saga of Mayflower May’, was released the following year, and has garnered the same acclaim as did ‘Ballads of Living and Dying’, with Pitchfork calling it simply an "enthralling album”. Her music is dreamy and spectral: an amalgam of traditional folk, paisley underground , shoegaze, and dream pop. Almost all of the songs are very sad – about broken hearts, death, or simple burdens. Her voice is what most people immediately respond to, with the writing and playing yielding a slow burn subtlety. Excelling at a Fahey-esque finger-picking technique, she plays homage to some of the great early American blues players. She sings songs of the sea, the haunting chansons of maidens, the cowboy ditties of ranchers, and the funerary processions of mourners. The eerie quality of her atmospheric music gives her songs a timelessness and sadness that is often described as otherworldly. From critical acclaim from sources like Pitchfork, New York's influential Other Music, and the widely respected Wire Magazine, it appears up until now her music has been a widely respected but finely kept secret.