Outlaster

Nina Nastasia has fleshed out her sound on her sixth album, but the increase is one of nuance, not volume. With her earlier recordings, Nastasia became known for a stripped-down approach to production, the kind where you’d swear you can hear crickets chirping somewhere in the background. But even though Outlaster is filled with strings and woodwinds, the expanded musical crayon box doesn’t overtake Nastasia’s spartan aesthetic; the arrangements wrap around the singer’s hushed tones in a bewitchingly serpentine fashion, cutting a stylish swath through the songs but leaving plenty of wide open spaces for Nastasia to unfold her elliptical, evocative lyrics. Indie-rock legend Steve Albini takes on production – or as he’d have it, “recording” – duties once again, and pals like Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and T-Bone Burnett’s first-call drummer Jay Bellerose pop up, but no matter how big the party gets, the intense focus and precision of Nastasia’s songs and singing continually keep the focus right where it belongs. With its moody, slightly sinister art-folk angularity (You want creepy? Check out the gonzo-goth cover art), Outlaster seems to answer the question “What would the evil twin of Joanna Newsom’s Ys sound like?”