Marissa Nadler
“The truth is, she has a voice that makes the trip through Hades bearable, points you back toward the exit, floats like a glowing ball above your head to guide you out of the darkness.” – Brooklyn Magazine
American singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler blends traditional folk, Gothic Americana, dreamy pop, and noir-ish rock into an original musical framework. Her music is idiosyncratic, bearing a unique and imposing signature for its sparseness and interiority, yet it opens onto haunted vistas embraced by fans of genres ranging from indie folk to black metal. While her first two albums were celebrated for their skeletal instrumentation, it was 2007’s Songs III: Bird on the Water that put her on the global map and drew the attention of musicians ranging from black metallers Xasthur to indie rockers Xiu Xiu. Her 2016 album Strangers represented an expansion of her songwriting as it moved away from primarily first-person confessional narratives to character-driven, episodic tomes. Meanwhile, she further tipped the balance from acoustic to more electric components including guitars and atmospheric synths for 2021’s self-produced The Path of the Clouds, which included contributions from members of Mercury Rev, Black Mountain, and Lost Horizons. She followed up with 2022’s The Wrath of the Clouds featuring two covers and three previously unreleased tracks written during the same period as her critically lauded album from the year before.