Apart from the most spellbinding songs, drawn from all three albums, Nina Nastasia also treated us tonight to five world class accompanists and some astonishing arrangements that had been worked out in just a couple of days before the gig.This was the first night of an eight concert tour, relaunching the hard-to find "Dogs" album and setting up the collaboration with Tuvan musicians Kaigal-ool Khovalyg and Sayan Bapa.
Nina's songs are already at the height of what is possible. They use original folk-rooted melodies with rural American and European inflections, carrying her own densely packed poetic lyrics, sung in a rich and emotionally controlled voice of consummate grace. She is a fine guitar player, and the first set combines the guitar and the songs with viola, accordion and Jim White's exquisitely subtlle drumming. It couldn't be simpler, but it's almost impossibly complex when trying to pin down the parts. The threshold of what we can hear is set so finely that the accordion's exhalation of air is a significant contribution in a couple of songs.
The second half of the two hour show introduces the two members of Huun Huur Tu, whose igil playing and extraordinary throat singing add a spine-tingling set of mysteries and wonders to the already head-bursting performance. A physical description can't evoke the awe that these musicians inspire. Birdsong, Buddhist chanting, falsetto harmony, Jew's harp, the deepest bass and didgeridoo sounds (all done with the mouth and the throat) ... they have an orchestra of other sounds, evoking a spiritual order and a different set of worlds. But they still work with Nastasia's songs and float, buzz , flutter or drone in perfect sympathy and resonance with Nina's voice and sentiments. Everything works to lift everything else.
That's it. It was a privilege to have been there. No recording is available, and (to be honest) I think the transience and the mortality were a part of what we heard. Unquestionably the gig of the year.
