NINA NASTASIA

Best,
Beer Can

In an experiment of collaboration, songstress Nina
Nastasia and the incomparable percussionist Jim
White have announced the release of their album, You
Follow Me. The album, which will be released on May
28th, 2007, is Nastasia’s second release on Fat Cat
Records.

White – who is best known for his work with the
highly regarded instrumental group Dirty Three as
well as lending his hand to the projects of Will
Oldham, The Boxhead Ensemble, Smog, Nick Cave and PJ
Harvey – thought up the idea of a collaboration
between himself and Nastasia after the recording of
her album, On Leaving, for which he played drums.

The album was recorded with the legendary Steve
Albini at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago
after White and Nastasia worked together with
musical organizer Kennan Gudjonsson with the process
of fine tuning the album in New York.

she was on blistering form in glasgow last night. this is the 4th time i have seen her and the first time i have seen her play solo. i was quite disappointed when i saw the setup, i thought i would miss jim white, but when she started playing... oh wow. much rawer than before. the rawness is usually lurking there under a fairly demure surface but this time it was all there for us to see. really amazingly great.

Looking forward to seeing her at Green Man.

happy to hear that. when i saw her solo here in Mtl last, it was dull.

she is a genius

Nina w/ orchestra? Fuck yeah.

This could be very good.

http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/n_lp_ninanastasia_10.jpg

Track off the new album available for download here:

http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/nina-nastasia-album-preview

Another track appeared on a FatCat sampler not so long back: "You Can Take Your Time" which for me was the highlight of her last Peel Acres session (6 years ago, give or take a few months!) The album version is great, but the live-at-Peel-Acres version was better, for my money at least.

A bit of street-teaming here so forgive me. Today at 5:30 GMT, there's an interview with Nina that I engineered, three live tracks including an untitled new one, it's on Resonance FM, the show is called Arctic Circle.

oh shit! thanks for the heads up

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/3/4/7/347cb6d6c36d33cb/Resonance__51_24-05-12.mp3?d13a76d516d9dec20c3d276ce028ed5089ab1ce3dae902ea1d01cb803ed9c15a528e&c_id=4560123

^^just listened! great stuff! sounds awesome btw, good job engineering.

she is a staggering talent, every performace i've seen or watched on youtube, it's just flawless playing and singing....

also she seems really cool and funny, way less serious than i thought she would be.

thanks, MaresNest x

Thanks guys!

It was a little problematic, the idea of meeting her as I'm a big fan, it could only be a letdown? In truth, NN and Kennan were incredibly gracious and nice to us, we plied them both with whisky and they hung out in the studio and chatted with us and some London friends of theirs for a good while afterwards. I really can't say enough nice things about them. And, of course the added bonus of watching/listening to her perform, well...damn.

I spoke to her twice after gigs when she was milling around. one feels like one shouldn't say hello and thanks to artists but she was lovely and, i think, even appreciated it. i have to say that the second gig was really special though, maybe my favourite gig ever, in fact.

I was lucky enough to see her and Jim white perform as a duo on that tour, what a show

her & jim white clanking along is still some sort of transcendent moment in acoustic-guitar-player-presentation, to me, like it was some amazingly novel moment, & record, that demonstrated making something that's more than the sum of its parts. so good.

couldn't get the above link to work today, but found this one:

http://www.jointhecircle.net/radio/?p=1769

the best

truth bomb^

she really is.

So how does Outlaster stack up?

i think it's great....though honestly i have my personal favorites but i think all her albums are of super high quality

I have "Dogs" on socialist records and really like it. Have always been looking for the album with Jim White, and saw Outlaster on vinyl recently for pretty cheap, like $9.99. I wasn't sure about it though. Always considered her a less alienating alternative to Mirah, and not in a bad way.

don't know mirah....outlaster on vinyl for $10 is a bargain

Oh! Give her a shot. Try the "Advisory Committee" album.

Got Outlaster on vinyl the other week. As scott mentions in an Outlaster thread, it sounds great and the packaging is fantastic. I used to be a total stan for the simpler arrangements in Dogs, but the strings in Outlaster won me over in the end. I have to add Dogs to the vinyls wanted list, though. I first heard Dogs while visiting a friend in the Audio Recording program at IU. A professor let him borrow it as an example of a great recording.

Dogs has been reissued at least once on vinyl, I bought it from her when she played in mpls w/Jim White

Reissued in Europe maybe? All of the copies on discogs ship from Germany/the Netherlands

yeah no idea, but there's no way it was the orig. press...unless she had a box leftoever that she brought on tour

the jim white record is kinda hard to find i think, now...i grabbed the last copy she had from the merch table and bummed everyone behind me out

btw, evan - mirah (the name) was bugging me and i realized a friend of mine put out a bunch of her records (or at least the vinyl versions)

Jim white collab on lp recently went for 80+ on eebs.

damn, i don't think i'd part w/it though

when amazon says it's "temporarily out of stock", does it really mean "probably out of stock forever"?

yeah probably gone...

honestly, sometimes if you have a decent bigger indie record store in your town you could call over and see if they have one collecting dust for list price, i've found stuff like that before

It's pretty great. Languid but surprisingly rough-edged (compared to the two tracks released first). The last track on the second side, Blue as Blue, is a storming closer, and I really like Death of Money and Moves Away Towns too. Definitely got that David Lynch/Lost Highway/Chris Isaak feeling about it. Perfect for this very dark and wild night, which has been punctuated by powercuts.

A few more listens and I'm really enjoying this, even on my incredibly knackered record deck. As mentioned I got an unexpected spare copy - if anyone would like it give me a shout and I can send it out (might be easiest in UK postage-wise).

Can confirm that Jeff (guitarist for Jolie Laide) is shipping out the Bandcamp orders early. Received my copy today, but house is too busy to listen to right now. Maybe later. Also received my copy of the Touch & Go vinyl reissue of The Blackened Air earlier this week, which sounds wonderful.

Ah I forgot about that reissue. Comically, when I try to order it through Touch and Go's site they ship to everywhere - including Pitcairn Island and the Isle of Man - but not the UK.

Ah I was going to joke about "bloody Brexit" - turns out that *is* the reason: "Apologies to all our UK customers, but due to Brexit, we are currently unable to accept orders from the UK.". Enjoying those sunlit uplands!

^ Hey JiffMoose, you had any luck purchasing The Blackened Air reissue? Unfortunately, the place I purchased it has sold out. If you're still having trouble, I'd have no problem purchasing it from Touch & Go and then sending it on to you.

Loving the Jolie Laide record, by the way. If I were to compare it to anything else Nina has done, it'd be Run to Ruin. It's a bit more uptempo than that record, but it has that same sense of dread running throughout. You can never quite get over the feeling that something terrible could happen at any moment. It's quite impressive.

Don't want to give too many spoilers, but "My Darling" is probably the song I replay the most. It's a gorgeous McCartney-esque ballad. Fairly short but very, very pretty.

Thanks Homeostasis - I did manage to track it down at Piccadilly records in the end, but thanks for the kind offer! It arrived on Halloween, and I think playing Ocean far too loud on my haunted record deck might have scared off any trick-or-treaters.

Don't really know Conan Neutron, but this is interesting - 2hr long interview with Nina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H5NYN3iHAE

first listen i am really liking the JL album

Finally got around to watching the interview. Interesting from 1:24:30 where Nina alludes to after Outlaster "there was another record that was a Bear ... if you could see the movie of it you'd see the break down. By the time we tried to do a recording it just didn't work, everything was breaking down at that point, it was just such misery that it wasn't happening. There are some recordings ... I'd have to go through and see what's salvageable, if anything"

Also very affecting on Kennan, with "Handmade Card" being a gift to him that was recorded on one night, "a joyful kind of thing". "He wasn't just one thing".

This is really nice: Nina writing about the influence of her artist father, James: https://www.talkhouse.com/role-models-nina-nastasia-took-more-from-her-father-than-she-realized/
Pennies dropping all over the place for me with "Jim's Room". I was just looking at the illustration from Blackened Air and wondering about it the other day...

New song by the band Mint Mile, Nina does vocals for 1 song on the album "Roughrider", called 'I Hope It's Different'.
you can find it on you tube if you look up Mint Mile I hope It's Different

Mint Mile are ex-Silkworm

Came across Jolie Laide live@cjsw

Blue Is Blue
My Darling
Move Away Towns
Isolation View

july 27, 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmvuhxUYo9M

Looks like Nina's been recording in person with Jeff and the band for the new Jolie Laide track/album that's mentioned there (IIRC the first album was done remotely): https://www.picuki.com/profile/ninanastasiaofficial
https://cdn1.picuki.com/hosted-by-instagram/q/0exhNuNYnjBcaS3SYdxKjf8F2vJ1WgxSZ60STLepjSVmIR1vLHOapZA0mpCj4yRwKg5lHDeVeSBk548iWV5SDVQVNEzeSbSKRTdS76ycVuqivDZg859nlbg9KXcaZ3Sn8MAvUGepNWwSDv5PHL||lo79UvOa0LGFq8zCXW||RDmG4CqZL0APIz9Z8j3aqT3Vjm5IolITNev2glIx1l85PZrjQDUufkM8lmpKw5RbgBzPgL6NDtmjHlQD14PVFwFA+QsoicqcFTgDTeJTMJ2naGRf8heRkv1hO+sxtsk7wRvtTyEa9M+N8Z96PUTjtQEjktqBwzwMSCtiXsXm+i+GZQwWTD0+S0QvcEp7bEIsmWZ9jf7SrDfrDhPYtCRW8tVfn3f3XJN7O5ApUPwNkfPasdgRiK||gWCZ7nwgUEoXWxI2w==.jpeg

(sorry for the double-post) but I also hadn't seen this: http://post-trash.com/news/2024/2/20/wrangling-brains-with-jolie-laide-feature-interview. This sort of exchange gives me a lot of joy:

Jeff: He [Clinton St John] was going to be on the first record more, but he was going through a lot of stuff, like divorce.
Nina: Yeah, divorce. Two brains cohabitating, it’s very difficult.
Sam: That’s a lot of brain.
Nina: A lot of brain to wrangle [all laugh]. But also, one brain is not enough! You just can’t go on with one brain, you need more brains.

8 new songs on the way - sounds like Nina's just finishing up recording in Seattle - https://www.picuki.com/media/3480983876762509478

New Jolie Laide album Creatures announced! - https://www.oscarstrecords.com/jolie-laide-epk

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5de5f7b1eedec8097379bea7/02a0d5c5-168b-4b4c-be8b-0754fd16baec/jolie-laide.jpg

Ahh, you can click through to the Soundcloud account where you can see the album details. Track listing:

Cheyenne
Holly
Murder Ballad
Wharwolf
Dalton
Something For The Thrill
No Shape I Know
Small Things
Old Collapser
Saw The Wave

I wonder if it's the same Murder Ballad Nina sung on a live set a year and a bit ago?

weirdly, you can click through to the soundcloud and hear the whole record???

Huh?! I wonder if that's a mistake?

Weird! Does mean I can verify it's the same Murder Ballad though! Sounds great

I want to marry her but back to the thread what's your fave nina song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm1Iqye_Zf4

Ah now there's a question!

Hard to pick just one - I likewise gravitate more and more to the Blackened Air/Run to Ruin period. Run, All You a great pick, I still remember the first time I heard and got Goosebumps from I Go With Him and So Little.

But there's something about the really stripped back, simply structured songs as well - I find it hard to pin down the magic as in some ways they're so straightforward, but still sound like nothing else. I think Stormy Weather was the first Nina song I heard and almost seems archetypal of her work to me now. I also love Bird Of Cuzco - I still don't know how such a simple song can be so affecting. Ask Me from the latest probably in this category as well, just devastating.

Saying that the maximalist stuff hits me hard too. Always love Wakes from Outlaster, The Day I would Bury You and You Her and Me. Played those to friends who could only hear her as a standard singer-songwriter and they're pretty persuasive. There's some astonishing live performances of That's All There Is that turn that quiet song into a wailing lament.

But if I had to choose - I'd say the song that most distills everything I love about NN, such a quiet, languid and direct song that's simultaneously so menacing, mysterious and so far from moist sloppy emotion - it somehow always sounds so dry to me, like being washed in volatile solvent - is Superstar. It's no ordinary record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvlVCktqJ8I

She’s playing Portland next weekend - likely will go.

Superstar is one of those songs where I listened for years and then looked up the chords, and it was just E-A-D, and it blew me away even more for the simplicity. Which should be obvious in the way it crawls along, but the trip goes so far it feels like it sheds a few different sets of changes. It has spent lot of time as my favorite. Treehouse Song has also spent time there. For the last few years, The Two of Us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsCv7IJyNsk

The way it mixes love and defiance and utter defeat. That's what she can do better than anyone. Heroic claustrophobia.

Lovely writing Bendy and great pick. Did you make it to the show Eazy?

I sure would like to see her live someday myself. Somehow I missed the one time she's been through my area.

Did you make it to the show Eazy?

It's this coming Saturday. Got a ticket!

Oh I'm getting my weeks mixed up. Ah nice!

Well I can't resist listening to the SoundCloud leak (if such it is? Though I will buy the album when it's out). Small Things, my word!

Creatures is out, it really is very strong, probably even moreso than the first album. I wasn't initially sure about the electronic/synth turn after the arresting opener of Cheyenne/Holly/Murder Ballad, but No Shape I Know/Small Things pulled me along and I now think it's a kind of genius move. Shame it's not coming out on physical media (as far as I know) - I'd like to bung the band a few more quid (and sent me two copies last time).
http://vishkhanna.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/jolie-laide-KK-SQ.jpg

There's also a long interview up with Vish Khanna on Kreative Kontrol - http://vishkhanna.com/2025/05/01/ep-973-jolie-laide/ - not listened to all of it yet. Clinton St. John's vocal influences are apparently Leonard Cohen and Jason Molina, which also makes me very happy.

Wow, Cheyenne is fantastic. Gonna need to play this whole album -- and I might not have if you didn't bring up the Molina influence (makes everything an instant listen for me), so thank you Moose!

There’s a lot to take in with this - a real departure from her previous work, especially because it’s fully a band with no clear frontperson now. Hearing her in so many trade-off verses with heavy guitar work is bringing out affinities with Exene Cervenka I never noticed before. This covers a lot of styles and textures I wouldn’t have expected, even if it is all akin to her previous explorations.

Yep there sure is - there's a (pretty great) live performance of Old Collapser up which really highlights that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg7hic4iBkE

Gah another ILX formatting flub. Anyway thanks NuNuNu and glad people are enjoying the album. There is another interview up on the Great American Folk Show - apparently with a new song (I haven't listened yet): https://news.prairiepublic.org/podcast/the-great-american-folk-show/2025-05-03/the-great-american-folk-show-episode-140. Also they're back on Conan Neutrino too!

Oh sweet, they've released an LP release of Creatures - https://jolielaidemusic.bandcamp.com/album/creatures. I didn't really expect that!

New album just anounced on instagram. Songs For a World Of Trouble. Comes out friday june 13 on Bandcamp only. 8 tracks (digital only) also includes e book with poems, stories etc....

I saw her open for Mono in December, such a great show but her set was too short, around 30 mins. She did play 4 new songs, one she dedicated to Steve Albini. Ive been wanting to put the set on yt or archive but haven't yet had the chance. Video isnt great(peoples heads were getting in the way) audio is better. Think I should try to get it up before new album? not sure if songs will be on there, don't know any of the titles for the new ones she played.

im loving the new Jolie Laide album. I wish they were playing more shows besides Canada. Listened to the JL podcast from Kreative Kontrol and they said theyre definitely going to do a third album!

Nice, thanks SR - I remember the title but didn't realise it'd come so soon. Friday the 13th!

I for one would love to see your recording of that set!

https://ninanastasia.bandcamp.com/merch/songs-for-a-world-of-trouble-listening-party

Listening party for the new album happening in 4 hours on Bandcamp. I think there'll be a question and answer session with Nina afterwards. Should be fun.

https://store.touchandgorecords.com/products/nina-nastasia-run-to-ruin-180-gram-blue-vinyl

Also, a 180 gram blue vinyl of Run to Ruin was released back in May, for anyone who isn't aware. Still a few copies left.

I just noticed the Jolie Laide albums I purchased on Bandcamp are downloadable as 24-bit/96kHz WAVs. That's basically Vinyl/DVD-Audio quality, as opposed to standard CD 16-bit/44.1kHz quality. Pretty cool. I must remember to save those albums on a DVD.

Standard CD 16-bit/44.1kHz is already higher quality than vinyl, in terms of fidelity and dynamic range.

Didn't think I'd make it, but the listening party last night worked well. Some fun chat with Nina on the subject of favourite clowns and horror movies.

Really liking World of Trouble. Terrific to hear songs we've only had live like Old Goat and A Blazing Fire get a proper release - the latter remains haunting and rather terrifying. Other songs immediately striking and memorable - sounds a lot like the Run to Ruin and On Leaving eras to me. Lovely multi-tracked vocals. Happiness is positively catchy!

Don't know where you're getting your information from @Vast Halo, but the higher the bitrate/frequency range, then the more improved the "fidelity". And the dynamic range of a recording is almost wholly determined during the recording/mixing/mastering stages. All the bitrate in the world would never improve the likes of Death Magnetic.

Jolie Laide have just released a new 3-track single, by the way. "In the Low Light". Not listened yet, but I'm assuming "Ranchlands Hum" is the same track played in one of the podcast interviews posted here a few months back.

https://jolielaidemusic.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-low-light

It is! In the Low Light sounding great to me, somewhere in between the first and second records

Don't know where you're getting your information from @Vast Halo, but the higher the bitrate/frequency range, then the more improved the "fidelity". And the dynamic range of a recording is almost wholly determined during the recording/mixing/mastering stages. All the bitrate in the world would never improve the likes of Death Magnetic.

They are right. The first number in 24-bit/96kHz is not bitrate, but bit depth. This determines the maximum dynamic range of the container - with 0 dBFS being the loudest it can record without clipping, different bit depths will determine how quiet the quietest sounds can go before being lost to quantisation noise. 16-bit depth is indistinguishable from 24-bit or 32-bit float if the file has been normalised with peaks at or close to 0 dBFS (you would only notice the difference if for some silly reason the final mix's peaks were barely audible, forcing you to crank up the volume, thus increasing the digital noise floor). 24 and 32-bit float files are only useful if you're going to mix and master the track (i.e. if you're going to change the levels, add compression, etc). They make absolutely no sense as a final, end-user format. 16-bit already provides a higher maximum dynamic range than vinyl.

The second number is the sample rate (i.e. how many times per second the sound wave is recorded, or "sampled"). It's mathematically proven that you can perfectly reconstitute a sound wave of a frequency that is as high as half your sampling rate, i.e. a CD can capture and reproduce up to 22kHz perfectly, which again is higher than what vinyl reproduces in practice.

Re: your comment about the dynamic range being determined during the recording/mixing/mastering, this is because a modern recording only uses a sliver of the dynamic range provided by the medium (which is not a bad thing at all - you don't want overly compressed stuff like Death Magnetic, but listening to a recording with to much dynamic range is a pain, no one wants an album to go from barely audible to deafening).

There was an old CD version of Starless and Bible Black by King Crimson I remember being crazy in terms of dynamic range. Classical albums on any format can have a huge range.

Another album will be available soon - an old recording that never got released!

I have another self released album in the works that will be available only on BandCamp relatively soon. The digital masters are done. I just need to get going on artwork. It’s a lost recording from quite awhile back that never got released. I’m excited to hear what you all think. It was one of those experimental projects.

https://ninanastasia.bandcamp.com/community