Saga of Mayflower May

Marissa Nadler | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 10, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Eclipse Records
• ASIN: B000CGX720
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #381,204 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Under an Old Umbrella

2. The Little Famous Song

3. Mr. John Lee (Velveteen Rose)

4. Damsels in the Dark

5. Lily, Henry, And the Willow Trees

6. Yellow Lights

7. Old Love Haunts Me in the Morning

8. My Little Lark

9. In the Time of the Lorry Low

10. Calico

11. Horses and Their Kin

Editorial Reviews

Review

Marissa Nadler
All guitar, vocals, 12 string guitar, background vocals
Brian McTear
Hammond organ on Mr. John Lee , Yellow Lights and My Little Lark
Nick Castro
Tin whistle on The Little Famous Song , piano on Old Love Haunts Me in the Morning
All songs written by Marissa Nadler
Production credits
Recorded at Miner Street / Cycle Sound Studios, Philadelphia, PA. December 2004
Recorded, mixed and produced by Brian McTear and Amy Morrissey
Mastered by Paul Hammond and Paul Sinclair at Fat City, Blue Bell, PA. --Album Credits

Product Description

"The beautiful, sad love songs on Marissa Nadler's tremendous sophomore effort The Saga of Mayflower May are surprisingly even better than those on last year's widely acclaimed Ballads of Living and Dying. Her mysterious voice...is gorgeous and evocative, especially when it's layered in multi-tracked harmony. She may be a contemporary folkie, but she seems somewhat removed from the current trends...there's something a lot more classic and old-fashioned about her approach, which makes The Saga of Mayflower May seem quite a bit more timeless than many of the other records that have been coming out of this genre." - OTHER MUSIC

"Marissa Nadler's emotional vibration of a voice, drawing comparisons as wide as Karen Dalton, Judy Dyble and Hope Sandoval, shimmers over cyclical Leonard Cohen-esque finger picked compositions for acoustic guitar, the proceedings fleshed out by tasteful use of organ, chimes and recorder." - COMES WITH A SMILE

"Another captivating collection of songs steeped in the melancholy of distant, half-forgotten passion, doomed love affairs, and various crimes of the heart...an enthralling album." - PITCKFORKMEDIA

Hailed as a smoky chanteuse both sultry and captivating, Marissa Nadler's songs are mostly mournful dirges and melancholic ballads. Delving into influences of old-timey Americana folk, Portuguese fado, psychedelia and country, the songwriting is gripping and unique. Pursuing the persona poem, most of the songs are stories of tragic deaths, forbidden fates, jilted love affairs and stormy suicides, as well as some introspective first-person songs. In concert, the melodrama is obvious, each performance is dripping with vaudevillian nostalgia. Nadler's intricate fingerstyle guitar comes through on six-string, twelve-string, banjo, ukelele, and autopharp. Her voice is velvety, resonant and soaring with ethereal reverberations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Songs of Tragic Romance and Ghastly Beauty, August 22, 2006

By 

Craig L. Gidney "ethereallad" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saga of Mayflower May (Audio CD)

[...]

Marissa Nadler is a singer from an alternate universe. In this world, laurel-wreathed maidens sit on the wooden porches of their mountain cabins, weaving their colorful tapestry and humming tales of doomed love. Nadler's second album is sparse, but the two main instruments-her delicate, yet intricate guitar and her crystalline soprano fill it up. The songs she writes are part Appalachian murder ballads, part the musings of a young girl who's absorbed the works of Poe. This dark, dreamy album is an artifact from the Bronte sibling's imagined world, full of ghastly beauty and tragic romance.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved everything you saw, March 8, 2007

By 

P. Avots - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saga of Mayflower May (Audio CD)

There is hardly an album these days you can listen from the beginning to the end without the urge to skip ahead some songs. "The Saga of Mayflower May" is one of the rare exceptions - when you put this disc in your player, prepare yourself to the journey to some other strangely beautiful, sad and nostalgic realm, narrated by mesmerizing voice of Marrisa Nadler.

Unfortunately, the journey will be pretty short - just a bit over half an hour, which is probably the direct result of excluding any random songs from this homogeneous album.

Another disappointment is the ascetic design of the CD - there are no pretty booklets or other eye candy included, just barely readable lyrics and other mandatory stuff printed in the spread of the CD case.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From another dimension, August 2, 2007

By 

M. Northuis (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Saga of Mayflower May (Audio CD)

It is hit-and-miss buying CDs from reviews, mediocrity can sometimes be hyped while truly visionary work can be misunderstood, even reviled.

Marissa Nadler work is visionary it seems to transport me to another unidentified time. Take the simple poetics of early Leonard Cohen and the Voice of Edith Piaf, bounce them off another planet and catch them on an old upright tube radio-well maybe not! But if you are interested in something haunting, original and brilliant this is your cup of mud.