Nina Nastasia’s Outlaster

My review of the very stark and beautiful Outlaster ran last week at Blurt.

Here’s a bit:

Starting in folk and slipping the leash, late in the album, towards wilder, more dissonant post-classical forms, Nina Nastasia's Outlaster sheathes powerful emotions in stoic restraint. Endurance, self-control, muted strength are much on display here in Nastasia's voice which can rise in an instant from murmur to wail, or finish an operatic climax with whispered, octave-leaping subtlety. And, yes, there is plenty to endure, too, in ten meditations on romantic situations too tangled to exit, too intertwined to repair.

The rest