Marissa Nadler - "New Radiations"

Photo by Ebru Yildiz

It's been roughly three years since we last heard from Marissa Nadler. Just last week I was telling a friend that I was most familiar with Stephen Brodsky through his collaborations with Nadler, and today she has announced an upcoming album and released a new single! "New Radiations" is everything we love about Nadler's music. The adjective "ethereal" gets tossed out a lot by music writers, but the term was basically invented to describe Nadler's music. "New Radiations" showcases her fingerpicking guitar playing and her otherworldly vocals. Even an acoustic based song like this one has a layer of haze coating it, and the entire song feels like that bizarre period of sleep when you're just drifting off into a dream but still somewhat awake. "New Radiations" is a raw and intimate work of art that is gorgeous in its own way.

Marissa Nadler says of her latest single:

“Psychic vibrations and new radiations have taken their toll on me,” a sentiment as timely as it is haunting, as she tries to “break the glass, tie up the ending of the scene. My narrator (whether these are first person songs or not really depends on how you want to listen to them) is feeling stuck, depressed, and frozen in a world after a tough few years for the world. Regardless, the ‘psychic vibrations and new radiations’ take their toll. The cosmic darkness we live in creeps into the psyche—but the character reaches clarity. As the song unfolds, the screen shatters, the ice breaks, and a new world begins."

You can watch the video for "New Radiations" below. The album New Radiations is due out August 15 on Sacred Bones and Bella Union, and is available for pre-order here. For more on Marissa Nadler, check out the artist's website.