Marissa Nadler - "If I Could Breathe Underwater"

Photo by Nick Fancher

We're obviously huge Marissa Nadler fans here at If It's Too Loud..., and her latest single is making us even more rabid. "If I Could Breathe Underwater" is this brilliantly lush and cinematic song. It's an unbelievably gorgeous song that feels like floating. It's spacey and ethereal, with the music perfectly fitting Nadler's dreamy vocals. Plus, there is this odd, disjointed almost surf like guitar helping to tie the whole thing together with harp. Nadler's music has always been painfully beautiful, but "If I Could Breathe Underwater" is a whole new level.

Marissa Nadler says of the new song:

“When I wrote ‘If I Could Breathe Underwater,’ I was contemplating the possibilities of possessing various superhuman powers: teleportation, shapeshifting, energy projection, aquatic breathing, extrasensory perception, and time travel to name a few. As a lyrical device, I married those powers with events in my life, wondering if and how they could change the past or predict the future. I loved working on the melody for this song and bringing the choruses to their climaxes. Mary’s [Lattimore, harpist and friend of Nadler's] layered, hallucinatory shimmers really echo the netherworld of the story.”

You can watch the video for "If I Could Breathe Underwater" below. The Path of the Clouds is due out October 29 on Sacred Bones/Bella Union. You can pre-order or pre-save the album here. For more on Marissa Nadler, check out the artist's website.