Marissa Nadler - Little Hells [Kemando 2009]

The unsuitably named genre free-folk has gained enough praise and attention in the past couple of years to raise its leading artists to rock star status; specifically Devendra Banhart, Coco Rosie and Joanna Newsome. In doing so the music has practically wilted away, becoming stale and formulaic. The name ‘free-folk’ implies a devotion to free-improvisation and unconventional structures; yet few artists have followed these obvious implications. Apart from Sunburned Hand of Man, Jeweled Antler Collective, No-Neck Blues Band and a few other intrepid souls, most artists choose the formula to success rather than the more uncharted path of exploration. Marissa Nadler on the other hand is a bit of an enigma. She too doesn’t employ free-improvisation and although she is stylistically connected to some of the more famed names of the so-called free-folk scene, her traditional style is somehow distinct, a mirror of the past with a haunting ghost-like presence. Perhaps her uniqueness is because she’s managed to stay under the radar, which has enabled her from selling-out. However, I don’t think her distance from mediocrity is as dogmatic as fame equals unauthentic art, but rather because the honesty of her songwriting is unwavering.

In the same desolate vein of Songs III: Bird on the Water, Nadler’s latest offering winds through a decaying forest of isolation, heartbreak and longing. But it would be foolish to expect an album called Little Hells to be a strict joie de vivre. But unlike her sorrow filled contemporaries, namely Jason Molina and Mark Kozelek, Nadler’s delivery offers an unspoken sense of hope, like on “Ghosts & Lovers” as she gorgeously utters, “I’m more than blue, I’m violet.”

Little Hells utilizes the dramatic change of seasons as an allegory for the unpredictably of love. Change shapes more then the lyricism of Little Hells; Nadler leaves behind the barren instrumentation of her usual guitar and voice for a beautiful warmth of organs, strings, percussion and steel-guitar, which together with lyrics like, “I know we had a beautiful life, but things change like the leaves on the vine” and “the flowers died a long time ago”, craft a poignant impression. When Nadler sings, “cob webs and rose pedals define her,” on the albums title track, although she is speaking of “a dark cloud of little hells”, it is also a fitting line for Nadler herself: an emblem of her dusty sound, sincere soul and austere charm.

Bardos Freedoom