Dreamy folkie or doom-metal goth? Party girl or paralyzed wallflower? Yes, yes, formerly and forever, says Massachusetts singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler. Debuting in 2003 with the self-released Ballads Of Living And Dying (a macabre, wintry decree by a 23-year-old ice queen, rife with literary allusions and unambiguous in title only), Nadler found herself eight years later back on her own, her crystalline hymns slightly thawed on 2011’s Marissa Nadler (the first release on her Box Of Cedar imprint) and her skin greatly thickened from a brief courtship (and briefer contractual release) by Kemado Records and offshoot Mexican Summer. Nadler’s sixth album, The Sister, is due May 29 on Box Of Cedar, and she will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all this week. Read our brand new Q&A with her.
Nadler: I’ve long been fascinated by “outsider art.” Adolf Wölfli was a Swiss artist who is often talked about alongside Henry Darger as a notable “outsider artist.” Much of his work was done while he was institutionalized.
“Every Monday morning Wölfli is given a new pencil and two large sheets of unprinted newsprint. The pencil is used up in two days; then he has to make do with the stubs he has saved or with whatever he can beg off someone else. He often writes with pieces only five to seven millimetres long and even with the broken-off points of lead, which he handles deftly, holding them between his fingernails. He carefully collects packing paper and any other paper he can get from the guards and patients in his area; otherwise he would run out of paper before the next Sunday night. At Christmas the house gives him a box of coloured pencils, which lasts him two or three weeks at the most.” –Morgenthaler
The work is especially fascinating because of the use of musical notation in it. Musicians over the years have adapted some of this music. In 1978, “Adolf Wölfli: Gelesen Und Vertont,” the first recording of Wölfli’s work ever to be published, was released by the Adolf Wölfli Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Bern. Since that time, a number of German musicians have released adaptations of Wölfli’s work. A comprehensive list of these artists can be found at the Adolph Wölfli Foundation‘s music page.
In 1987, musician and composer Graeme Revell released an LP entitled Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles: The Music Of Adolf Wölfli. This was on his own Musique Brut label in London in 1987. This audio compilation was based on the works of Wölfli and incorporated digital renditions of Wölfli’s compositions, with additional sound effects and ambient soundscapes added to the songs, by Revell, based on the artwork surrounding Wölfli’s musical notations. The LP was a collection of musical interpretations by Revell as well as DDAA and Nurse With Wound.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIBKhNcdI6Y
