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Product details

Audio CD (7 Jun 2010)
Number of Discs: 1
Label: Fatcat Records
ASIN: B00009NH6K
Other Editions: Vinyl | MP3 Download

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 49,508 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Track Listings

1. Cry, Cry, Baby

2. Moves Away

3. You're a Holy Man

4. You Can Take Your Time

5. This Familiar Way

6. What's Out There

7. A Kind of Courage

8. Wakes

9. One Way Out

10. Outlaster

Product Description

Review

Since 2000, Hollywood-born, New York-based singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia has been making astonishing albums that have cut listeners to the quick, leaving their bones exposed, dragging their hearts away. She has swept up some high-profile fans in the process: six sessions were recorded for John Peel, and legendary producer Steve Albini has worked with her closely throughout the last decade, calling her first album, Dogs, "one of my favourites... of the couple of thousand records I've been involved with". Still largely unknown outside alternative circles, Nastasia's bruised, balmy songs deserve a much wider audience.

Outlaster is Nastasia's sixth LP, following 2007's You Follow Me, an experimental album fashioned with Dirty Three drummer Jim White. This is a more old-fashioned record, full of tangible tenderness and yearning strings, but there is imminent danger as it moves along languidly. Nastasia's beautiful voice is at the heart of this, being easy to love and full of natural soul, but also handling every syllable with a quick-smart economy that teems with strength and authority.

These endlessly accessible songs also have depths and twists. Cry, Cry, Baby begins with Nastasia telling her newly-former lover she won't weep or worry any more, but later she says, coldly: "You're my only true love / And I know I can't change". You Can Take Your Time swings with country spirit and reassurance, albeit with a sting in the tail ("you can take your time to work things out / It'll be alright, just don't screw up"), while What's Out There exposes her talent for observation ("A wall, a window, a gnatty garden turning hotly in the heat"), as strings are plucked and bowed anarchically to create clammy atmospheres.

Nevertheless, this is a record full of space and intimacy, drawing the listener completely into its black-and-blue world. This mood makes opening lines like "They're wrapped him in a sheet, he could be anyone / We say a psalm, as we would for anyone" from Wakes sound much more personal and tangible than it is grand and dramatic. Let her stories into your life, and they will never leave you. After all, Nastasia's talent is to snare those who find her, and never let them go. --Jude Rogers

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Slight but haunting 27 Aug 2010

By Researcher

Format:Audio CD

Nina Nastasia has produced another somewhat slight but haunting album to complement 2006's 'On Leaving' and her 2007 collaboration with Jim White, 'You Follow Me'. Each of these albums contains two or three very powerful songs, at least one extraordinary one, and a number of atmospheric but somewhat uninspired efforts; perhaps that's not a bad hit rate but in the case of all three albums, I've felt faintly disappointed, as though she's fallen short of the greatness within her reach. Nastasia is a very special artist and I only wish she would take more time between records and produce another faultless album like her debut, 'Dogs', which is the place to start if you are unfamiliar with her work. Also: ignore this album's cheezy, vaguely adolescent-looking Gothic cover art; while many of Nastasia's songs aspire toward a kind of folk Gothic, she's much more sophisticated than this cover makes her look.

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Amazon.com: 4.2 out of 5 stars 4 reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A somber beauty 2 July 2010

By William Merrill - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Nina Nastasia's latest work is a forlornly beautiful collection of ten folkish tunes, usually featuring exquisite acoustic accompaniment from some combination of a string quartet, woodwind quartet, and rhythm trio (guitar-bass-drum). The songs were expertly "recorded" by the legendary Steve Albini in Chicago. With Nina having a somewhat sweeter singing voice than Lisa Germano's, the two artists' styles are still somewhat similar; Ms Germano's music also being more relentlessly gloomy. In any case, I really recommend LG fans check out Nina. Along with the slow-folk, Outlaster also reveals a musical theater aspect on "This Familiar Way". It's a dramatic number that makes very effective use of all three ensembles and the players, especially the woodwinds and violin. Many listeners came to Nina's music via her song "Ugly Face", which was used over the closing credits of the horror flick Carriers. Hopefully they were then brave enough to try more of her songs or even albums. Outlaster is certainly a rewarding listen for those who like folk music with a chamber music twist, and who appreciate melancholy songs for the end of time. I am baffled as to why Amazon has this CD listed in some places as by "Giddy Motors and Nina Nastasia", though. There is no reference to "Giddy Motors" anywhere in the booklet or on the other packaging, nor is the album listed that way on her label's web site (fatcat).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Gorgeous Packaging & Music 17 Aug 2010

By Joshua Bell - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Vinyl|Amazon Verified Purchase

Gorgeous, screen printing on the cover. Electric Audio records the crap out of this album. The drums on tack 2 are perfect. Nina's songwriting is more complex but no less listenable.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal. 20 July 2010

By a reader - Published on Amazon.com

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

How I loved The Blackened Air. But Outlaster just replaced that as my favorite Nina Nastasia album. It's beautiful, moving, and powerful. It's so good that I don't want anyone else to listen to it because I just want it for myself. Selfish, I know, but I can't help it. I love how Nastasia evolves with each subsequent record, but never, ever diverts from the path--the core is the same, but each record has a theme that exposes another facet of her. Great record. Beautiful work. "Wakes" is orchestrated flawlessly, and it's--I think--the best track on Outlaster.

Outlaster

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