“I like playing smaller rooms more than bigger rooms. I like to fill the whole room with my voice. I played a lot of churches in Europe, which you’d think would be great, but I feel like my voice got lost in the rooms,” says longtime PHILTHY phriend and Nashville-based singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler, who’s gearing up for her second appearance at MilkBoy when she returns to the venue on February 15th, her first time at the Center City barroom since her 2023 solo run. However, during our recent phone chat, Nadler clarifies that the UK/Europe jaunt — which took place last October and November — was, in general, a great experience: “I think the shows really resonated with people, and I think I’ve gotten a lot stronger as a live performer. It’s nice, after all these years, that I can go to random places and people show up.”
Her fall dates throughout Europe and the UK and upcoming North American shows – which kick off this coming Saturday in Nashville and wrap mid-April in Bentonville, AR – come in support of Marissa Nadler’s tenth official full-length, New Radiations, which dropped in August via Sacred Bones and Bella Union. “Marissa Nadler’s fingerpicked lullabies seem designed to induce the sort of sleep that hovers on the precipice between dream and nightmare,” wrote Pitchfork just prior to the album’s release, a reaction Nadler tells me she really enjoyed. But she also tells me that she’s gotten some especially meaningful responses from some people who know her a little more intimately: “A lot of my friends, and my brother even, were like, ‘This is the most you record you’ve done!’”
Nadler characterizes the new LP as “definitely a slow burn,” with a lot of focus on vocal layering. Like her previous full-length, 2021’s The Path of the Clouds, New Radiations was produced by Nadler herself, with Roger Moutenot helping to record. Longtime collaborator Milky Burgess provided basically all the additional musical contributions, with mixing duties and “like one synth part” handled by Randall Dunn, known for his work with Sunn O))), who also produced a couple of Nadler’s previous LPs, including Strangers, which I remind Marissa turns 10 this May. “I still feel good about that record. In fact, I might have Randall produce another record in the future,” she admits, going on to add, “I still identify with some of the songs, which isn’t always the case. I mean, I have more than 100 songs, but I feel like it’s a special record and I do still like it.”
However, Nadler tells me that the music on New Radiations feels more akin to an earlier portion of her career: “Because it’s stripped down in a way, it’s in conversation with my earlier work, but I’m a much different person than I was back then [laughs].” In addition to her countless shows between Johnny Brenda’s, World Café Live, Boot & Saddle, and now MilkBoy, a handful of releases from Nadler’s first decade actually have roots in Philadelphia: 2005 LP The Saga of Mayflower May, 2011’s self-titled LP, and 2012 EP The Sister were all produced by Brian McTear at Miner Street Recordings, while 2007’s Songs III: Bird on the Water was recorded and co-produced by Greg Weeks of local psychedelic folk legends Espers, some of Marissa’s best musical friends. “I’ve always felt an affinity for Philadelphia,” she tells me.
For Marissa’s upcoming return to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection (and MilkBoy), she tells me there’ll only be one more person than she had on stage at her 2023 solo show, but that the sound will be notably larger: “I’m bringing Milky [Burgess] with me, who’s playing a steel console, synthesizer, bass pedals… all with his feet… There’ll be two people on stage, but it’ll sound luscious and full and gauzy and reverb-y.” She also says that she’s quite excited about Sacred Bones labelmate Maria BC, who will be opening the show: “I think that’s gonna be a really good pairing, and I think they’re going to bring a cross-generation thing; I think they’re a lot younger than me, so hopefully the music will be reaching new listeners.” (Also serving as openers on later dates are our phriends Gracie and Rachel and Yeasayer’s Anand Wilder, who Nadler tells me she’s equally excited about.)
Marissa Nadler has been releasing music on Sacred Bones (also home to PHILTHY phriends Anika, Sextile, Indigo Sparke, and Uniform) since 2014’s sixth full-length July, so I’m curious if she has any other favorite labelmates at the moment, and she tells me, “I really love that album that Hilary Woods put out last year, and I love the album that Gloria de Oliveira did with Dean Hurley, who was David Lynch’s right-hand man.” She’s also a big fan of Lynch himself, in addition to Jim Jarmusch, who’ve both put out several records on the label.
Along with her music, Nadler also teaches and works in the visual arts (She shot and directed all three music videos from New Radiations, in addition to doing photography and painting.), and when I ask her about some of the biggest influences behind the visual elements of her work, she mentions both Lynch and Jarmusch: “I really like the Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, the films of Jim Jarmusch and David Lynch, the photography of Francesca Woodman, Henry Darger… The thing all these people have in common is that they’re all creating their own worlds.” She even references playing with Jarmusch’s band SQÜRL in Rockefeller Center as “a huge career highlight” (They were also joined by our buddy Bria Salmena!)
After the 37 dates of the New Radiations North American Tour wrap, Nadler tells me she and Milky Burgess will shift their focus to a different project of theirs: “I have a side project, Ophir, which is a band where I just sing. But Milky’s in it, and Paul Haslinger, who played with Tangerine Dream. It’s very sweeping, cinematic music.” Ophir has an official release in the works, which Marissa is anxious to drop, but she also says that, as always, there will be quite a bit more music in the works, as well: “I’m excited to put out that record, and I’m excited to start writing again… I’m a lifer artist, and I’m always gonna be writing songs, which is my favorite part… not that I don’t like playing!”
*Get your tickets here.
**Listen to New Radiations’ “Smoke Screen Selene” on the latest edition of Philthy Radio, a track that Marissa says is a favorite.
