Marissa Nadler’s latest record, New Radiations, goes back to her core roots of simplicity, a slow burn, stripped-down album meant to be listened as a whole from start to finish. Each song tells a distinct narrative that is uniquely creative, but with a universal sentiment that is tied together by the fragile yet all encompassing soundscape she is known for.
Songs resonate when we relate to them. We all are trying to cope with something whether it be lost love, grief, guilt or even chipping away at something you will never achieve, and that relatability can only happen when the artist is vulnerable about trying to cope themselves. Nadler has turned hyperbolic vignettes and her own past experiences into a standout album that mxdwn had the absolute honor of delving into with her.
mxdwn: Hi. My name is Eve Pierpont and I’m the editor for mxdwn’s music features section. I’m here today with Marissa Nadler. Hi Marissa. Hi, how are you?
Marissa Nadler: I’m doing pretty good, how about you?
mxdwn: I’m doing good. So, I know you produced The Path of The Clouds yourself, and you also produced New Radiations as well. What was different this time? Was there anything you learned between the two records that you utilized?
MN: Yeah. They’re very, very different records sonically. The Path of The Clouds had a ton of guest features from my musical friends, and is really a band record that’s very Pink Floyd-ish, and then this record is pretty much the opposite. It’s just me and my partner, Milky. It’s just mostly me on the acoustic guitar and the vocal. I really wanted to focus on having the songs stand on their own without really anything else. It was a challenge that I put out for myself with the intention of being able to tour the record from start to finish in an easy, not easier way, but, I just wanted to go back to simplicity a little bit to my core roots.
mxdwn: Yeah. Awesome. In 2023, you were featured on the song “High on a Rocky Ledge” from the album Songs and, I’m just going to say Symphonies because I’m not going to try to pronounce it in French, The Music of Moondog by Ghost Train Orchestra and Kronos Quartet, which features new arrangements Louis Hardin’s music, also known as Moondog, a blind composer who moved to New York City and wore Viking attire while selling his records and reciting poetry on Sixth Avenue, who eventually signed with Columbia. What was that experience like?
MN: It was really cool. Brian Carpenter is the guy that asked me to do it. He runs this radio station at Boston College in the basement that he has done for many years, and I didn’t really know that he had all these other things going on, and then one day he wrote me and said, do you want to be part of this project? And it had this crazy all-star lineup, and of course I said yes, and I did the vocals in the studio with the Kronos Quartet, and it was my first time ever having the privilege of singing with such an esteemed quartet before. I was nervous, but it went really well. And then we performed the whole thing live at the town hall in New York City, and I got to do that song with David Byrne, which I was also extremely nervous about. It ended up really fun and I love doing guest vocals and collaborations outside of my own songwriting, just because it’s a whole other facet of my musical world.
mxdwn: Yeah, definitely. I could see that. I feel like that would be such a fun thing to be able to do. You also recorded a cover of Soundgardens’ “Fell on Black Days” for the Superunknown (Redux) as well as several covers on Songs of Townes Van Zandt Vol. III. How did you go about interpreting those songs and then deciding what you wanted to do with them for your rendition?
MN: So, the Soundgarden thing is this record label called Magnetic Eye, and they just do covers records, and he just got in touch with me and I kind of say yes to a lot of things for the experience, and I would’ve never thought to cover a Soundgarden song. It’s not in my, I don’t know how to say French words either, but {laughs} that was really fun. I like doing things out of my stylistic box and with the Townes Van Zandt project, that’s more in my stylistic box. Like you could do a direct lineage between his work and his influence on me and that style, but I’ve loved him for a long time and I wanted to just honor the songs. They don’t need much, this is the thing with a good cover, I feel like you don’t have to make it sound exactly like it, but to honor the melody and the structure and give your own flare is kind of the goal. So I was really happy I did those last two projects with my partner Milky Burgess, who did a lot of the instrumentation on the Soundgarden song and stuff like that. It’s nice to sometimes just step into the vocalist terrain because it is a different right hand, most guitar players have their own right hand technique or left hand depending on what you are, and so when you sing with somebody else, it’s like a whole different bed to lie in.
mxdwn: Yeah, that’s true. I guess I’ve never thought about it like that, but yeah, no, I was reading things about your Soundgarden cover, and it’s funny because you say it’s like not in your wheelhouse, which I get, but it seemed like it was a standout track on that redux, which is awesome. And I was like, oh, that’s so cool.
MN: Yeah, I’ve done a ton of covers over the years that are on my Bandcamp that are not part of my official, like this new record’s my 10th full-length record, but I’ve got like five full length covers records over the years, and it’s a good way to just look practice, especially now that I’m on Pro Tools and I’m my own producer. Every single thing you do is a step towards getting better at your craft.
mxdwn: Totally. Yeah, no, I saw that. I was like, wow, she may only have like 10 albums out, but she has a lot of other things going on. I noticed that. So, when you first started writing the lyrics and music for New Radiations, what was the vision you had in mind for it and what did you want the overarching theme to be?
MN: So, with every record I’ve done, I don’t normally set out with a concept at first. It’s more of an organic process, and a lot of times once I’ve gotten a bundle of songs, the meanings will reveal themselves to me and I try to trust the process. I knew that, I mean, there’s some overarching themes on this record. It’s obviously a very intimate, warm record that I intended to be listened to from start to finish, rather than a collection of singles, which is hard in this day and age, because you have to release singles to get people ready for the record. It’s kind of almost a travel log, this record, each song, the narrator is speaking from a different plane, not airplane, but plane. Whether it’s future, or the past, or up above in the sky, or outer space, or on the ground and in memory, I was playing with different narrative devices and I put out a few assignments for myself on this record, songwriting wise. I said I wanted to focus on bridges and pre-course and structure, and I wanted these lyrics to the melodies to be catchy. Like even if it’s a slow burn and a very slow, sad record, I think upon repeated listens it like these melodies are hooky and stuff.
mxdwn: Yeah, definitely. I like that you say how you thought of it as a full length album instead of singles, because when I was listening to it, I was like, I feel like she wrote this to be listened cohesively and it worked really, really well. And, and I’m so into slow burn records. So, I was loving it.
MN: It’s hard, because the one before, it was not a slow burner. It hit you right over the head. And so I knew I was setting myself up for some people to say, oh man, oh, I wish it rocked. But I don’t think a lot of people put my records on to rock. And I know that because after so many concerts with the drums, people would come up to me and say, you know, Marissa, I really miss just stripped- down stuff. And of course I’m not making music to please anybody else. But those thoughts do linger a little, you know?
mxdwn: Of course, how could they not? That’s totally understandable. Plus, your voice is just so beautiful. A stripped-down record is really all you need sometimes.
MN: Thanks. Yeah. You know, I think I’m one of those people that’s going to be making records forever. So, it’s like when people say, how is this record different than the other ones? I’m like, well, they’re all different. They’re all babies, you know?
mxdwn: Exactly. No, I totally get that. When you are writing lyrics that aren’t first person narratives, for example, like “To Be the Moon King,” how do you go about channeling other stories and characters?
MN: You know, I try to keep like an open portal creatively into things that could be songs, because some of my favorite songs are about the craziest things if you really think about them, or like Ziggy Stardust, that whole album. I love that album and it’s kind of narratively really interesting. When I’m not on tour and making records, I teach art at night to adults, and I’ve taught special needs kids and stuff, you know, the record cycle, you’re on tour for a year, but then there’s the years in between. So I really enjoy teaching, and I have all these books, source material books about astronomy and things that people can draw pictures from just lying around. I happen to love outer space imagery, and I was reading about Robert Goddard, the father of Modern Rocketry, and how he spent his whole life trying to meet this goal that he never really did, but is largely credited for the reason that people can go in space today. So “To Be the Moon King” is kind of like an ode to all the inventors and creatives that toil away in obscurity, and I have him pictured, like, I don’t know that he wrote backwards and mirrors, but I kind of used some embellishment and I said all his failed experiments are piled up in his shed in the backyard. I just kind of like to write little vignettes and short stories that people could relate. I think a lot of people can relate to chipping away at something forever and not meeting that goal and still trying. Anyway, each song on this record, a lot of them had those kinds of starting off points. But I wouldn’t say the song is about Robert Goddard. It’s more about the universal desire to create something beautiful and leave something behind.
mxdwn: Aw, that’s amazing. I love that. And it makes so much sense that you teach art in a way because you are very creative in your songwriting in a way that is artistic. I don’t know how to describe it exactly. It’s more than just being a musician and writing lyrics. Like you said, you don’t know if he’s sitting there writing backwards on a mirror, but the fact that you can think of that is very creative. So, that makes so much sense. That’s awesome. Good for you. Can you tell me about “You Called Her Camellia?” What was the song’s inspiration?
MN: So, that’s kind of a heartbreak song, and without delving too much into my like illustrious personal life, or whatever, that’s not the right word, but I have this neighbor that told me about her, these older people that live next door. They’re wonderful people. And she was telling me about her father, she grew up on a dahlia farm, and she brought over this newspaper clipping of her father in a field of dahlias. This was initially the jumping off point for that song, where I just imagined a lonely old man toiling away on a field lamenting his past love. It’s just a song about being left behind really. It’s sad, but I had a lot of fun with the chorus with the, “this wasn’t the deal” because, I cracked myself up, because initially I had other lyrics there like that would rhyme with feel or, you know, and when I came up with that, I liked it because when people fall in love, it’s a risk you take and it doesn’t always work out. So, it’s not a happy song, but it’s a pretty song. I have always gravitated towards, I like tragedy in art.
mxdwn: Me too. Me too. That’s why when I was reading the lyrics along with listening to it, I was like, wow, this is like, so up my alley. Just everything about it, which is maybe sad, I don’t know, but I love sad music and tragedy too in art, so, yeah. It’s great. So, how are you able to tie ideas such as like the Moon King and orbiting satellites, spaceships and psychic sensations with the emotions that come with love and loss and all the ideas in your songs in such a prevalently relatable way? I know you like kind of touched on that in your last question, but even if it is a farfetched idea, like you said it wasn’t actually about the rocket scientists, it’s more about chipping away, like how do you just convey it in such like a universally relatable way?
MN: I’ve studied a lot of songwriting or I think about songwriting a lot and a lot of times the verses are highly specific, detailed. Especially with somebody like Bob, I’ll take most people’s, alot of people’s, one of their favorites, Bob Dylan often has these songs where the lyrics in the verse is really specific and this is an old time country and folk tradition. And then the chorus is a universal sentiment, which is something I’m just playing with, these tropes and adding stranger narratives to them. But I think that when you change the time and place and setting, it just makes for a more interesting short story. Like I think of the songs as little vignettes or short stories or character studies, so to me, I love a good chorus. I just like a catchy chorus because I think it’s a satisfying part of a song, so I tend to try to figure out what I’m trying to say a little bit and make sure that that comes across in at least one line of the song. Like “Smoke Screen Selene” for instance, weirdly my favorite songs on this record are not the singles. I like “To Be the Moon King” and “Smoke Screen Selene” the best because they’re so creepy, and that one, the chorus is like, please don’t let her destroy you like I did. Like I think most people don’t need an explanation as to what that’s about, but even though I gave myself an epithet or a name, it’s fun to play around with tradition and turn it and just add more to it or something.
mxdwn: Yeah, no, definitely. It’s funny you bring that up because my next question was going to be can you tell me a little bit about “Smoke Screen Selene?” Because I also really, really enjoyed that song. Just the creative process and what drove it.
MN: I got that riff, that dark like dun-dun, it’s just this really simple riff first, it was like an unfinished thing. And I always keep writing up until the beginning of recording because I always seem to write my best songs under pressure, the day before it’s due, an ADD kind of thing, I got the riff and then I just started writing. It was a very first person song. I mean I had some tumult in my personal life and moved to a new part of the country and into a new relationship, and so it’s pretty like, I can never go back. It’s when you say it out loud, it’s pretty journalistic, but “Smoke Screen Selene,” I love the tradition of giving these names, it’s a lot more interesting than just saying like I or me. I just liked the way it sounded and I try to kind of trust whatever pops into my head and I’ll write it, because creativity, when you’re drawing for instance, doodling, some of the coolest stuff is just straight from your imagination. Some of the coolest drawings are from children before they have that voice in their head that says, this isn’t realistic or this isn’t good. I try to squash that voice when I’m writing songs too, that negative thing and just say, just go with it, because some of my favorite songs are really weird and I have no idea what they’re about and I don’t want to know what they’re about, you know?
mxdwn: Yeah. That’s so true. I love that. That’s awesome. I also really enjoyed “Sad Satellite” and I think it’s a great closing song for the album. What drove that song and what was it like creating it?
MN: That was the first song I wrote for this record. Originally, like I had demoed it a bunch of times, kind of got demo-itis on that one a little, because the demo is really pretty. It’s just the way it goes. Again, there’s a lot of songs on this record that are pretty personal and I think I wrote them as a processing and coping mechanism of dealing with my past a little bit and kind of entering a new era, which is why I named the record New Radiations. It’s like, satellites just orbit and they don’t go anywhere, and so it’s kind of an attempt to stop being a sad satellite and by writing the song, you know, to come back down to earth. Because a lot of the record takes place in the sky or up above.
mxdwn: I love that. And I get that. I write, I journal, like you I guess, like you write songs to, not get over it but you try to move on and start a new era. So, I totally understand. It’s probably why I relate to the song so much. The whole album, like we kind of were talking about earlier, seems to be tied together melodically beyond just your Piedmont blues style guitar playing. It’s very intimate, stripped-down, yet it is still full and has a powerful soundscape. How do you think you achieve that? How did you go about doing it, achieving that?
MN: Well, I’m lucky to have a really great partner who is a great collaborator, it’s not easy to play with somebody really delicate like myself. I’ve struggled through the decades to find a band mate that doesn’t play too over what makes my music special because I do think that it lies in the fragility and the intimacy. I played an acoustic guitar and do all the vocals and the background vocals in the record, and he did all the synthesizers, the lap steel, all the other stuff, Milky Burgess is his name, and he played on Strangers and The Path of The Clouds as well, but I think working with him and then my choice of mixing with Randall Dunn who produced July and Strangers and agreed this time to just mix my record, which was nice of him because he normally doesn’t do that anymore because he wants to produce but I think he got that it’s important for me, at this stage of the game, to have autonomy and just this feminist thing where I don’t want to have to rely on anybody anymore for anything {laughs}.
mxdwn: I get that.
MN: We have the tools these days that we didn’t have when I was younger that you can create amazing sounding stuff just right in your bedroom that can rival a very expensive sounding record, if not better. My Boston accent just popped out a little.
mxdwn: That’s okay. I love accents {laughs}.
MN: It comes out occasionally. It hasn’t been replaced yet with a Southern accent, but he mixed it and tried to, I remember him saying like, that instrument eats up all the space, I’m taking it out. And I’m like, okay. And just the team that I put together, I think Randall and Milky are both known for creating atmosphere. They’re both really good at it and it worked out pretty well. You know, of course with any record, I’m one of those people that once I finish something, just want to go right back into it and change things. Letting go I think is the hardest part of the creating process. Whether it’s an article, a painting, a story, it’s so hard to walk away and call something finished. I could have worked on this for years and added more and more layers, but I would’ve lost that rawness.
mxdwn: Yeah, no, it’s so true. Like, I’ll write something and then I’m sitting there nitpicking like every word and how I could say something better and then I’m just like, no, got to turn it in. Just say you’re done and be done. No, that makes total sense. You have a tour for New Radiations starting soon. What are you looking forward to most when it comes to sharing this album live with fans?
MN: Hmm. Well I hope, of course, like any artist, you hope it’s well received, you hope that people connect. I think it’s going to be fun to get out of this room, because I make my own music videos and make my own everything, so there’s so much stasis that just traveling can be really inspiring. I’m looking forward to maybe writing new songs on the road and I think that my pre-existing fan base is really going to like this record because it’s generous in its stripped-down-ness, but I hope it appeals to new listeners too and looking forward to just, we’ll see. I agreed to like a very long U.S. Tour that’s longer than I’ve ever done before, so we’ll see if I make it through it {laughs}.
mxdwn: Yeah, no, I get that. Aw, it’s beautiful. It being played live is, I feel like going to be amazing. I don’t know how people couldn’t receive it well. It’s going to be such an intimate concert. You are very vulnerable on it, which is something I always really appreciate.
MN: Yeah. My stage presence is equally as charmingly awkward. So, that’s at least what I’ve been told, I mean I used to have the worst stage fright ever, now I’m better for the most part. I’m certainly not like an exhibitionist or a performer in the traditional sense. I would expect, like remember Elliot Smith at the Grammys when he was like so shut? That’s kind of like [me].
mxdwn: Yes, yes. That would be me too. I can’t even public speak in front of like ten people. My voice starts shaking, so I can’t even imagine being on a stage. Just out of curiosity, do you normally write songs on the road?
MN: I’ll write lyrics. Because it’s hard to like get a guitar out in a car.
mxdwn: Totally.
MN: I’m trying to get more into writing melodies when I’m not rooted in a guitar because you can always add instrumentation, like writing diddies in my head and stuff.
mxdwn: That’s awesome. I always find it when I’m traveling that I like to write a lot too. I don’t know, there’s something about traveling that I’m like, I want to be writing right now.
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