Nina Nastasia @ The Black Cat
Nina Nastasia's voice wavered and her eyes darted furtively around the room. "This isn't going very well, is it?" she asked, reaching for a swig of liquor. As adept as Nastasia is at storytelling in her lyrics, she struggled at first to engage the audience between songs, muttering under her breath before admitting that she usually doesn't talk about her songs before she sings them.
She also usually doesn't perform alone. The New York singer-songwriter, who has earned the respect of such heavyweights as producer Steve Albini and late DJ John Peel, has performed with as many as seven or eight musicians and most recently toured with her You Follow Me collaborator, drummer Jim White. In her solo appearance at the Black Cat last night, she never seemed entirely comfortable with her storytelling abilities outside of her songs, but charmed the audience nevertheless with her dark humor as she related stories of a recent visit to the emergency room and a hilariously unfortunate visit to an Isadora Duncan dance class.
Granted, this wasn't too hard as she had every eye and ear in the Backstage room completely fixated on her. During some of the quieter songs, it was actually possible to hear some of the more chaotic patrons of the Red Room, but the more she played, the easier they were to ignore. When pared down to just her deftly finger-picked guitar and her clear haunting voice, her compositions took on an unnerving quality not unlike those of Nick Drake. She may have had other instruments backing her in the studio, but she didn't need them.
Photo by marco annunziata
Arlington's Amy Domingues, aka Garland of Hours, seemed an appropriate opener, partially because she'd toured with Nastasia before (with Threnody Ensemble) and partially because she too had an ethereal yet moody quality to her songs. While the shy singer's looped cello arrangements sounded vaguely like those used by Athens musician Tin Cup Prophette, her voice was closer to Tori Amos had she been an alto and her discernible influences ranged from folk to classic rock.
Anyone not familiar with Nastasia before the show left understanding that this was not just another woman with a guitar. She painted pictures dark and moody enough that Sonic Youth could've hung them up on their walls. Her songs were acoustic, but decidedly not folk-y. She may have been nervous about performing solo, but considering the intensity and clarity with which she performed, Nastasia had nothing to fear.