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Album Details

• Artist: Marissa Nadler
• Album: Ballads of Living and Dying
• Label: Eclipse
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-04-25

I recently was on a business trip down to San Francisco and found myself in the amazing Aquarius Records. As I was shopping I was taken by the music that was playing over the system. It was the most beautiful folk-style music I had heard. Captivating is about the closest I can describe. This lady's voice just seeped into every I enquired on the artist and was told that it was Marissa Nadler. Ballads of Living and Dying is Marissa's first album and it is one of the finest examples of folk ballads in the past 10 years. The songs are romantic and yet very haunting in the same breath. There is not much to these songs. They are mostly just an acoustic instrument (guitar, banjo, etc) and her achingly beautiful voice. A little bit of studio trickery with echoing her voice but the production is very minimal. This just lends itself to the heartfelt music contained within. Any Gillian Welch fans should run out and grab Living and Dying. They may not go back to Gillian after they hear Nadler. Now I've just read an article on her in the latest Fader magazine. Hopefully she gets some exposure from that article. A new album is to be expected as early as April/May.

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