If you go out of the door in the evening, past mountains, into the forest, through the fog to the quiet lake, and then let your hand slide into the water: Marissa Nadler’s music sounds like this: In a very conciliatory way, spooky. She produced her tenth album New Radiations herself, Mixer Randall Dunn, otherwise producer of drone bands such as Sun o))) or Boris and Score Composer, has contributed the cinematic, flat sound.
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New radiation deals with farewell, fading, acceptance and letting go – and again and again from flying: “Back in the day, you were all the rage / when you could still hypnotize her / rockets and planes, and through hurricanes / fused to the sight of her fire,” sings Nadler in “Light Years” multiple and ghostly too Daring finger picking – like the blessed Elliott Smith once, he would not have gone to La, but to Nashville.
In “Weightless Above the Water” she sings: “The Sky Took Its has off, the spaceship Became My Home, Weightless Above the Water, I was finally alone”, and synths flows around the fragile song core like gray rings. Nadler’s clear mezzo-soprano hovers between the gothic folk and essential pop, dusted with synthesizers or strings, there are hardly any outbreaks. Despite all the fragility, new radiation is full of movement. The songs flow, rustle and dissolve warmly. You would like to get a driver’s license immediately to listen to this record in a mild summer night under a desert starry sky with a night-cooled skin on loop.
This review first appeared in the MusikExpress 09/2025.