NINA NASTASIA - Dogs

Listening to an enjoyable record is always something worth

hardly worth waking up five minutes early for; even more so in a month as

numbing as this gloomy, almost rushed-through January. They fall like drops, the

stylized notes of this American songwriter devoted to near-anonymity, as reserved

as few others, heir and witness to a folk-writing tradition apparently always

teetering on the edge of being old-fashioned, yet tenaciously still able to reinvent itself with

real effect, as histrionic as the talented — though not always, to be fair —

singer-songwriters called upon to act as messengers for us, their eager listeners. And among

those left suspended, undecided whether to give in to the temptation of folding

entirely in on themselves or to cry out the pain they carry inside, a place of real

substance belongs to Nina Nastasia, who, as the year of the great bang was unfolding,

that is 2000, made her debut with the album "Dogs", recently reissued by Touch and

Go/Wide. Credit, then, to the label, which lets us fill a musical

gap caused by the painfully small print run of the debut, which came out (and instantly

became a rarity) on Socialist Records.

A light record, in the sense that

velvety, yet one that steers well clear of certain singer-songwriter excesses

that nowadays clutter the shelves of music retailers. Nina gets by just

fine with a voice that always leaves the impression you've heard it somewhere

before, as if it were the trademark of an American artist turning

to the craft of the storyteller. Or perhaps it's down to another trademark, that of

the listener who's always trying to dig up, just to show he's understood a

record, the right comparisons, the fitting references, the unmistakable

lineages. Maybe in some other musical world, worse or better than this one, things

would work differently, but in this land of notes no one escapes

the cultural (musical, in this case) humus they grew up in and,

whether out of silent homage or inevitable sedimentation, peppers their work with

citations. So does Nina, who nonetheless seems skilled at

filtering that background and reworking it through her own sensibility as

a girl spare in features and in art, taut and hard like someone bracing to

shut herself away in the dressing room and there, finally, let out the tears she'd denied herself

on stage.

There's a sort of first group: the three opening tracks, which

introduce us to the more sing-song side of the artist. Minimal, this is how

she presents her way of making music; measured, hinted at and repetitive like an old

nursery rhyme that comes to mind as you walk through the fields,

picturing the wrinkled face of a grandmother who used to sing it to you and who is now gone.

This is evident above all in "Dear Rose" and "Oblivion". "Judy's In

The Sandbox" almost acts as a bridge to what comes after.

After

a generous first part, in which the same atmosphere recurs, there seems to come

a shift in mood and sound. No longer aggressive, but certainly less intimate. You

can hear the strings, in a way you wouldn't expect, and the track fades out with

an obsessive, graceless vocal stammer. And this foreshadows "Underground",

the track that perhaps leans most towards rock and leaves the impression of

listening to someone who, despite wanting to hold back, can't manage to and gives in to moments

of long-dormant release. The fields are still there, but maybe some cloud is rising

from the west. And Nina soothes it with a dream.

“Dogs”, an intense and visionary track,

melancholic and nostalgic for a different life. Musically accomplished and similar to the

previous one, evidence of an almost bucolic poetics. These two tracks ensure that

Nina, withdrawing into herself again with “A Love Song”, has lost

the innocence and calm of the album's opening.

A strong

imagination persists, as in the following, aching “Stormy Weather”, tinged

with pessimism, and in “Smiley”, almost an inner dialogue of the author, who

this time seems to want to destroy from within the singsong refrain that, for better or worse,

has always accompanied her. So much so that in the next two tracks (“Roadkill” and

“Nobody Knew Her”) she seems to scream out this new, subversive state of mind: “I'm Feeling

Myself Against The Ground” e “I Want To Get Out Of Here”.

The final tracks do not

depart from what has been said so far. The visionary drive remains,

though not always vivid. They seem like added, pasted-on sketches, either to ride

the wave (the negative hypothesis) or out of genuine need (the positive hypothesis). The voice,

though, keeps winning you over, and a certain melancholy refuses to let go

of you with every listen, and, blow after blow, it gets under your skin. But it's just as

Nina says, closing the record: “I know it's important to feel justified, I know

you thought everything would be much easier”.

Ride the wave of great music

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12/12/2006