Doing It Her Way

The Age

Friday July 27, 2007

Dan Rule

The trappings of a successful music career don't sit comfortably with Nina Nastasia, writes Dan Rule.

SELF-PROMOTION has never been Nina Nastasia's strong point. Over the course of a decade and five intensely personal, widely celebrated albums - including her latest collaborative effort with Dirty Three master-drummer Jim White, the stunning You Follow Me - the New York singer-songwriter has made a habit of avoiding the music industry's hype machine. Press interviews included.

"Um, well, this isn't that bad, right?" she offers with a nervous laugh. "Some people can do it but I've not been able to really find a way of talking about what my music means without it sounding totally ridiculous."

But Nastasia's trepidation isn't limited to shooting the breeze with eager journalists. As she explains - whispering from a hotel room full of sleeping band mates, while on tour in London - performing her wondrously spare and skeletal Americana live still presents her with problems.

"We just did a show last night, and yeah, we had some incredible technical difficulties; partially my technical difficulties and the other part was the equipment," she say. "Which is a kind of dangerous combination.

"It can be hard for me to handle stuff when it goes wrong. I guess you could call it stage fright. But it was OK last night. Well, I don't know if it was OK but it's going to have to be, right?" she laughs.

In some ways it's fairly unsurprising. Born and raised in Hollywood, the 39-year-old never saw music in terms of a livelihood. After moving to New York on a whim in her 20s, her early creative offerings were little more than the stuff of simple, personal expression and small-scale club performances.

"I didn't kind of commit to having a career at it at all, you know," she offers. "I was playing shows and I had a band and it kind of just snuck up on me. I didn't think of trying to make a living out of it; that's probably not the smartest thing to want to do anyway.

"I was kind of getting a little bit of a following in New York and then I started to want to make a record to document the stuff I was doing. And I guess at that point, that started the commitment. We were investing in something that we really couldn't afford on our own."

The record she's referring to is her now legendary debut, Dogs, which she and her partner (and musical organiser) Kennan Gudjonsson self-released in 2000, replete with elaborate handmade packaging. While something of a monetary calamity, the album - which was recorded by American production cognoscente Steve Albini - was a strikingly economical musical affair, with Nastasia's simultaneously fragile and formidable vocals lilting effortlessly along the sparest of guitar and string arrangements. Hailed by the BBC's late great John Peel, the record, and its brilliant follow-ups The Blackened Air (2002) and Run to Ruin (2003), soon established Nastasia as one of the great contemporary American voices.

While familiar, brand new record You Follow Me - which follows the charming pastoralisms of last year's On Leaving - is something of a departure for Nastasia. Billed as a collaboration with long-time drummer Jim White and bearing both their names on the cover, the record sees the pair trade compositional blows over 10 stunning tracks.

"I guess what makes it different is that Jim's definitely as much upfront as I am.I still wrote the songs, but yeah, they're as much Jim's as mine in the end.

"We did a couple of shows with just us two and then Jim suggested we do a whole record like that. During the few shows we did, it sounded really interesting because Jim can kind of take on the role of a lot of other instruments."

But while her methodology has taken a turn, for the ever-bashful Nastasia, some things will never change.

"Some of the subjects are very personal, you know," she offers when quizzed on the inspiration behind her latest set of songs.

"It's something that I might not feel so comfortable talking about," she pauses, filling space with a nervous laugh. "But for some reason, singing about them is a different thing."

Nina Nastasia and Jim White play the Northcote Social Club tomorrow night. You Follow Me is out now through FatCat/Inertia.

© 2007 The Age

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