Marisa Nadler : "New Radiations"

 Her 10th album finds Nadler stripping things down to a more minimalist yet cinematic feel. It feels spacious, yep, with an intimate yearning. Her vocals are produced in a similar reverb-heavy manner, but the layered harmonies feel more pronounced. It feels more like her earlier work than the past couple of albums in the overall sound that drifts in from the opening track, so let's see where it goes from here. The answer is the kind of haunting ballads you want for Hot Ghost Summer, the same season she seems to be singing about on "Bad Dream Summer Time". There is a slight 1950s pop feel, to the otherwise lonesome western sound. The guitar takes things in a more folk direction for "You Called Her Camellia." Yet the more pining twang of country ambiance colors things with a longing ambiance.

The faint rumble of a low-end frequency anchors "Smoke Screen Selene". This gives the song a hypnotic drone that Nadler wanders around in. The guitars are more layered for the title track.   "It's an Illusion" might as well be from the soundtrack to a David Lynch movie; aside from its more pastoral depression, there is a mysterious quality to the surreal dreamy quality it invokes.  "Hatchet Man" was the only song I heard before giving this album a listen. The story it tells is not overdramatized. "Light Years" finds the vocal taking on an even lighter croon, as the song feels like clouds are descending from a starlit sky. Her breathy vocal delivery allows some of the lyrics to stand out in this song, they are "you used to be right there beside her. 

The song title 'Weightlessness Above the Water" is a fitting description of what the song sounds like, though the scene feels like it is set at night. Even more fragile is "To Be the Moon King." It feels more like a folk song. The mood is somewhat uniform on this album with subtle shifts in the stylistic change from song to song, but it is consistent in what she does. She brings emotions similar to longing and melancholy to life with the sound she uses. I will give this album a 9, as it captures the sound she has been perfecting for the past nine albums, no huge surprises if you are fluent in her music. 

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