Customer Reviews

Saga of Mayflower May

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

[...]

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.

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.

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.

Not since 1967 when I first bought Joni Mitchell's Song to a Seagull have I played an album over and over and over. This album is gorgeous in much the same way. While folk music's fair young maidens turn into tough old broads, it's nice to know the universe is still producing fair young maidens who know how to turn a broken heart into deleriously beautiful poetry and music. You have squint to get at the words printed in such tiny letters on the CD cover, but if you do get to know Mayflower May you will have to agree with her that, "everyone who feels at all has got something to say about the wayward sovereign ways of every wild day." Thanks to Marissa!

but I like 'Living and Dying ' better

I heard an interview w/her on radio
She is very shy and awkward
at one point the obviously taken -by-her -beauty DJ said-

"so- does Marrisa Nadler have a funny side?
Youre not all dark and depressing are you?
Do you know any jokes?"
"Yes!" she stammered out
DJ "OK, Let hear a MN joke!"
she shyly stammers out something that she already knows has fallen flat before the last word comes:
"What did the bird say to the farmer?"
DJ "Tell me!"
"Nothing-it was dead-the farmer ran over it with his tractor" she said sounding like she wanted to melt under the nearest bookcase
THATs OUR MARISSA!