Nina Nastasia

Nina Nastasia, a vocalist and composer, has built a singular catalog of material anchored in folk and Americana yet marked by a brooding, Gothic tone. Her performances revolve around acoustic guitar, typically framed by lean string ensembles and restrained yet expressive percussion that frames lyrics both deeply intimate and plainly articulate, while her delivery maintains an exceptional equilibrium of fragility and force.

Her second album, 2002’s The Blackened Air, revealed the complete scope of her gifts and the distinctive atmosphere she and her fellow musicians produced in the studio. A close musical partnership with Jim White yielded the 2007 collaborative release You Follow Me, which fully exploited their shared creative chemistry. More than a decade after stepping back from music, she resurfaced in 2022 with Riderless Horse, a stark guitar-and-vocal collection shaped by profound personal loss.

Born May 13, 1966, in Los Angeles, California, Nastasia absorbed her parents’ record collection during childhood, a trove heavy on jazz, folk, and pop that ranged from Edith Piaf through Judy Collins and Billie Holiday to the Beatles. Her grandfather worked as a composer and an aunt sang jazz. Piano lessons filled her early years, yet she showed only passing curiosity about music history, preferring instead to channel her imagination into short stories. At twenty-five, after settling in New York City, she picked up guitar and began writing songs informed by her California years. With guidance from her partner Kennan Gudjonsson, she assembled the strongest material from six years of writing and entered the studio with a small group of musicians; Steve Albini captured the sessions. The resulting album, Dogs, appeared in 2000 on Gudjonsson’s Socialist Records imprint and drew favorable notices, aided by Albini’s public endorsement. Albini forwarded a copy to BBC disc jockey John Peel, who aired tracks from Dogs and invited Nastasia to record a live session for broadcast.

Touch & Go, the American independent label, signed her on the strength of Dogs and released her second album, The Blackened Air, in 2002. Again engineered by Albini, the record adopted a more expansive approach and earned further critical acclaim while cultivating a devoted, if modest, audience. The shorter, more immediate Run to Ruin followed in 2003; recorded in France, it featured drummer Jim White, whose prior credits include the Dirty Three and Nick Cave. White also contributed to 2006’s On Leaving, Nastasia’s debut for the British label FatCat. Their rapport prompted the duo recording You Follow Me in 2007, limited to her guitar, his percussion, and her vocals. Three separate ensembles—a string quartet, a brass-and-woodwind group, and a guitar-bass-drums trio—joined her for the 2010 album Outlaster, her most ambitious effort to that point and the conclusion of her initial creative period.

Gudjonsson served as uncredited producer on the majority of her releases, devising arrangements and selecting accompanying musicians. After their relationship grew strained and unhealthy, Nastasia informed him she was leaving; the next day he took his own life. Overwhelmed by shock and remorse, she resumed songwriting as a means of processing the tangled emotions. In 2021 she prepared a recording space inside a guesthouse in Esopus, New York, where Steve Albini and Greg Norman engineered a dozen new songs performed solely with acoustic guitar and voice. Temporary Residence Records issued the resulting album, Riderless Horse, in July 2022.