When Matthew McConaughey (yes, a shitty place to start a short piece about Nina Nastasia — but it’s being done and the songbird’s likely cringing, if she even cares that this is being written about her) asks the courtroom and the jury to close their eyes during his closing arguments of “A Time To Kill,” when John Grisham had us on the ropes, the dramatic effect striven for is one of transportation. The idea of closing ones eyes makes everything seen, everything outside of oneself vanish. The lids go down and poof, nothing but what you want to put up on that blank screen. When writers ask you to do the same thing — to close your eyes — it’s a technique to get you to project their little film up onto that blackness that you see so that it feels like it’s happening, that it isn’t just imagined. Nastasia uses this technique with her songs, especially those she chose to do for this session when she visited our studio Sept. 13, about a month before On Leaving was properly released in the U.S. The New York songwriter seems cloaked in soft, darkness — the kind that you find after midnight when everything’s been unwound and debriefed. Pull your covers completely over yourself some night. That is the general comfort level that Nastasia invokes — a stuffy (it’s this way because she uncannily feels to be in touch with some of the same things that you are) warmth and the embrace of the dim pre-sleep silence. The problem with comfort is that it’s so shaky and it’s so easily lost. When you’re under those covers, toasting and ready to retire away into slumber, if there was a sound outside those covers, you’d immediately be spooked. Now, imagine that it could be the other way around. Imagine that all of those popped out surprises were flashes of brilliant beauty, not uncaged animals looking for a leg bone. It’s how Nastasia and her musical organizer/boyfriend Kennan Gudjonsson (who doesn’t actually play in her band, oddly enough) write. It’s how the four songs below are marked — accented by the backing of Calgary band The Cape May. All’s calm and wilting until a trilling flutter of piano peeks a boo or some dash of cymbal makes a cameo just for a couple seconds before receding back behind the curtains as Nastasia’s precious voice remains the focal point and her guitar lightly follows. These flourishes are not trifles, but as important as a roof or, in the case of darkness, a nightlight or three. — Sean Moeller

First song
Jim's Room (Nina Nastasia) [2.43MB] [3871 downloads]


— original version appears on On Leaving
I will dare you not to be sucking in a breath as the song melts into its end. It leaves you with the core sentiment that the entire record is based upon. Nastasia sings, “Painting pictures of smoke,” and you can sense, deeply feel the plumes of those grey feathers trailing away and losing their shapes, just becoming more sky.

Second song
Why Don't You Stay Home (Nina Nastasia) [3.13MB] [3716 downloads]


— original version appears on On Leaving
Without understanding it, sometimes people do things and make decisions that are just unexplainable. I think that’s what this song is about. It’s one of the best songs you’ll find this year. Nina sounds so unwavering in her touch.

Third song
Underground (Nina Nastasia) [2.51MB] [3532 downloads]


— original version appears on Dogs
A number from Nastasia’s classic album. Listen to this on a set of headphone (you may already be one step ahead of me) and it’s guaranteed that you’ll feel like you’re in three separate places. Enjoy them all I tell ya.

Fourth song
Lee (Nina Nastasia) [4.41MB] [3405 downloads]


— original version appears on On Leaving
The first 10 seconds of “Lee” remind me of my favorite Masters of the Hemisphere song “Anything, Anything,” (though “200 Heads” is so close) and then it takes on a different personality and becomes a tale of a kid persuaded to do girly things like putting on mascara and playing with dolls. Some might say.