NINA NASTASIA

Such a beautiful song

https://www.electricalaudio.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=69261

Nina's longtime partner Kennan Gudjonsson killed himself, so tragic

Moving tributes from Steve Albini and Tim Midgett

That’s awful — I feel terrible for Nina, moreso considering Albini’s comments that she’s been dealing with her own health issues. Which I’d never heard about before but might explain her lack of releases this past decade.

It sounds like he’d been her constant companion for a couple decades, so I hope she has strong support around her.

that's really sad. RIP.

Horrible news. RIP.

I had an incredibly brief encounter with Kennan & can attest that he was very much as advertised (and more) in Steve & Tim's posts, just heart breaking

I spun Dogs & the Blackened Air & Run to Ruin last night and man those fucking records

Nooooooooo, this sucks, I hung with them both for an afternoon for a radio session/interview, Kennan was a lovely big bear of a dude.

A small piece of news - a (very) tiny interview on Velvet Sheep from Jun 30 - https://velvet-sheep.com/song-for-ewe/nina-nastasia-song-for-ewe/

“I have many more records in the works, so I’ll be getting back to music from this long hiatus. It’s where I’d like to stay for a long while again.”

Nina's classic song selection: "The song I love and never get sick of, isn’t obscure-ish. I don’t listen to a lot of music actually. Common People – Pulp"

Here's hoping things are going alright for Nina in New York.

Glad to see this thread get bumped for good news.

oh wow thanks so much
that's great to hear
hopefully it actually happens
i had recently thought that maybe she would be done forever

Really hope Touch & Go finally depresses her early work, too

it was pretty depressing to begin with!

i had no idea nina nastasia was so good! i loved dogs when it came out but never stayed listening to her subsequent albums, she got better and better! you follow me and outlaster are incredible. i wish someone would encourage her to write a stage musical tho lol, like a dark gothic brecht play with a zombie apocalypse.

Funny! Yes she is awesome- any reason why you stopped paying attention despite you loving the one album at the time?

They don’t call her Nina “Nasty Nas” Nastasia for nothing

there's no singer songwriter I hold in higher regard

Funny! Yes she is awesome- any reason why you stopped paying attention despite you loving the one album at the time?

― Evan, Monday, 1 February 2021 04:37 (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh probably a lot of reasons, like my focus shifting to club music (my 20s) and subsequent things i heard not having the same bright immediate ring of dogs. i think its probably a good thing as lots of the things i've been enjoying are shaped by subsequent things i've gotten interested in and i don't think i would have really appreciated this music in the same way if i'd heard it when it came out

Outlaster came out more than a decade ago now. :(

i wish someone would encourage her to write a stage musical tho lol, like a dark gothic brecht play with a zombie apocalypse.

This is a good idea. There's a big Brecht/Weill thing going on with Outlaster.

Outlaster came out more than a decade ago now. :(

― pomenitul, Monday, February 1, 2021 11:12 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

scary!

she was trying to warn us :(

I miss anticipating her next record a lot, but after all these years, there's also an appeal to the tidiness of six albums so good I cant choose among them, evenly spaced over a specific decade, produced with the same raw sheen, as though there was a Felt-like manifesto she completed.

i think she's got a new album coming out this year?

She posted on her bandcamp in October that she was working on something and would try to get it out in the "next few months" but nothing has been announced yet.

Per what I said in 2018

I'm excited but until I see a release date I'm not exactly holding my breath. I mean I saw her playing new songs in 2012.

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, February 23, 2018 1:49 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

There's a big Brecht/Weill thing going on with Outlaster.

― Heavy Messages (jed_), Monday, 1 February 2021 17:44 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yes and a real one, not a plinky plonky campy pastiche where everyone has smeared kohl around their eyes, big knickers and a bowler hat! there's a great sense of theatricality, dark narratives richly colorful and the songs on outlaster in particular are so integrated with the arrangements im obsessed. Outlaster and you follow me are the two i like the most i think

she's also an interesting guitar player and her playing is v important to you follow me, more than i expected as i feel like she's promoted so much as a 'songwriter'

six albums so good I cant choose among them

I definitely have favorites among them, but they are all pretty great, and I love how each album really has its own identity. She has worked within the same basic indie-folk construct but done very different things with it sonically.

We polled them a year ago and there were a handful of clear favourites but her level of consistency is indeed remarkable:

Nina Nastasia: We Never POLLed

I've been really loving "Outlaster" recently, which I got when it came out and liked but it never really stuck with me and it has been the NN record I reach for the least, I probably haven't spun in 5 yrs or longer.

Anyway, it sounds great to me now.

i only recently got into her albums recently (having heard and liked dogs when it came out but none since) and with them all lined up to choose from outlaster and you follow me were the ones that have grabbed me most

she's one of the few artists where at various times every one of her records has been my favorite at one point in time

Listening to Run to Ruin right now for the first time in a bit, she's so good.

not sure if these have been posted, but they're awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcsVKelBOuw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgXwl2Sjqnk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6M6x_QYrPo

I haven't ever seen these available anywhere else - so I made a playlist of a few unreleased and rare songs. They're pretty incredible, especially "World of Dirt"

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVL0o0rTY5ypolWuNYMqPDEEnLzoPXZGb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dyptWKLd8Y

old stuff reissued on bandcamp!
signed to Temporary Residence!
touring with Mogwai!

https://pitchfork.com/news/nina-nastasia-digitally-reissues-3-out-of-print-albums/

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news! Those are my 3 favorite albums of hers (love the first 3 too, of course).

i fell out of listening to her after dogs which i liked a lot at the time. i ended up listening to all of them recently and outlaster and you follow me are the two standouts in my opinion

Agreed those are my top picks also blackened air

Fantastic!!! Run to Ruin also great.

new album july 22

https://www.clashmusic.com/news/nina-nastasia-announces-new-album-riderless-horse

it says there that this kennan gudjonsson produced all her albums but I and wikipedia thought it was steve albini?

Kennan was the producer, Steve recorded/engineered everything

i mean that's how i would have guessed it based on what i know of albini but wikipedia lists him as the only producer on every single record. on discogs, gudjonsson is listed as producer on two of them (on leaving and you follow me) but most don't list a producer at all. He's listed in various capacities on all of them (e.g. musical director on outlaster)

The text of that announcement was … not what I was expecting. Were the darker elements widely known? I remember a lot of grief and loss at the time of Kennan’s death over at the Electrical forum, but no hint of this stuff.

Good news on the album (and "Just Stay in Bed" is lovely). Quite blindsided too by the details in the announcement.

Longer description in the press release

https://ourculturemag.com/2022/04/04/nina-nastasia-announces-new-album-riderless-horse-shares-new-single-just-stay-in-bed/

I don't want to comment on her personal life (though I hope her return to music is a sign that she's isn't in such a dark place these days), but this daytrotter writeup has haunted/irked me for years. the writer spends the first paragraph and a half introducing us to the concept of the Svengali before insisting that Kennan and Nina definitely don't (really, they don't!) have a Svengali-Trilby relationship

Gudjonsson does not perform with Nastasia live, but acts as her manager and best friend, contributing to her art after the lights have cooled and the crowds have dissipated. Serving her songwriting this way makes it difficult to know where everyone starts and ends and what we're left with is Nastasia earning the distinction and reaping all of the credit. So we'll give it to her -- happily. It's that voice anyway that has us riveted.

don't most singer-songwriters reap most or all the credit for a creative process that owes a lot to the support/input of their loved ones and collaborators? and is it really fair to claim that Nina takes "all the credit" when she has publicly acknowledged Kennan's efforts (but hasn't gone so far as to give him songwriting credits)? Nina's case is really only noteworthy if one has previously operated under the assumption that she was a solitary, 100% self-made genius, or if one is loathe to celebrate the achievements of a female artist unless it's abundantly clear that she doesn't owe the bulk of her success to the men in her life. tbf it's probably unhealthy and spiritually destructive to waste so much energy on bad faith readings of terrible music writing

I'm currently debating whether to see her open for Mogwai in Boston in a few days. I've never even heard Mogwai and idk if it's worth it to attend a concert chiefly for the opening act

I don't care about Mogwai, but for her I'd go.