Music Category: CD

‘Mousse

  1. Daddy’s Little Girl
  2. The Trade
  3. I’ll Meet You In The Sky
  4. Cary
  5. Giving Them Back To Susan
  6. Living It Up In The Garden
  7. Stainless Steel
  8. Monster
  9. Einstein’s Daughter (Live)
  10. Cool In The Backseat
  11. Dictator
  12. Kamikaze
  13. I Hate MCI
  14. 39 Orange Street
  15. Waco Lake
  16. Blind
  17. Julia (Not Julia)
  18. Superhero Soup

Play

  1. Easy People
  2. Georgia O
  3. In The Hush Before The Heartbreak
  4. Snowman
  5. Art Of The Gun
  6. Nugehtfotra
  7. Last Kisses
  8. Friday At The Circle K
  9. Check It Out
  10. Nebraska
  11. Train
  12. Jennifer Falling Down
  13. Innertube
  14. Tomorrowland
  15. Bonus Track

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now

  1. Jeremy Newborn Street
  2. Wanting
  3. This Town Is Wrong
  4. Maybe It’s Love
  5. May Day Cafe
  6. Caroline Dreams
  7. Poem
  8. One Hundred Names
  9. Mr. Right Now
  10. Jack The Giant Killer
  11. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
  12. Mercy House
  13. Keys To The Kingdom
  14. Forever
  15. I Still Believe In My Friends

Live from Northampton

Disc 1

  1. Intro
  2. Jack the Giant Killer
  3. Taxi Girl
  4. Snowman
  5. I Need a Doctor
  6. May Day Cafe
  7. One Hundred Names
  8. Bulletproof
  9. Your Wish Is My Command
  10. Alfred Hitchcock
  11. The Train
  12. Easy People
  13. Keys to the Kingdom

Disc 2

  1. This Town is Wrong
  2. Strawberry Girl
  3. Georgia O
  4. I Know What Kind of Love This is
  5. Gotta Get Over Greta
  6. Best Black Dress
  7. Jennifer Falling Down
  8. I’ll Meet You in the Sky
  9. Check it Out
  10. Living it up in the Garden

Love and China

  1. Ticket To My House
  2. Yesterday’s Girl
  3. Love Me One More Time
  4. Tailspin
  5. I Haven’t Got A Thing
  6. The Sweetness
  7. He Loves The Road
  8. Love And China
  9. Christmas Carol
  10. This Happens Again And Again
  11. All These Years
  12. Heading Home
  13. Eulogy For Emma
  14. New State Of Grace

Left to their own devices, the duo’s lilting sibling harmonies and Nerissa’s intelligent songwriting keep the sisters anchored in the familiar territory of searching folk-pop ballads and midlife laments such as “Yesterday’s Girl,” “The Sweetness,” “All These Years,” and the title tune. Yet they also slip into a delightful, Yankee-inflected country mode on cuts like the honky-tonkish “Love Me One More Time” and the twangy “He Loves the Road.”

This Town is Wrong

  1. The Day I Let Glory Steer
  2. Glow In The Dark Plastic Angel
  3. This Is The Work That We Do
  4. When I Let You Into My Closet
  5. Haven’t I Been Good
  6. Clairman Town
  7. Paris
  8. Sara, With Your Ring
  9. When I’m Here
  10. If I Wanted To
  11. Kiss Me On The Moon
  12. This Town Is Wrong

The 11th outing by Nerissa & Katryna Nields (in one form or another) is the soundtrack to a novel by Nerissa of the same name about a pair of 13-year-old girls who take on the mantle of rock in order to ease the pressure of adolescence. You’re right, as concept recordings go, this is the least pretentious one in pop history. The Nields are one of those duos whose entwined voices sound like the output of one enlightened, street-savvy, quirky singer, who is not only making sense of the world around her as she sings, but is imparting the found wisdom and folly of it as she goes. This has been true in all of Nerissa Nields’ songs — she writes with the notion of a plural voice becoming one. The songs in This Town Is Wrong reflect that there is strength in numbers even in the most awkward of circumstances. There is a plethora of voices represented here; there are the two protagonists, gal pals Randi Rankin and Angela Riddle, and Randi’s dad, a rambling, barely-there songwriter named Guy. The other voice is that of a tough local rock band called the Big Idea. Over 12 songs, the colors in the novel come to life and stand as a pop/rock testament unto itself, full of irony (which almost no one does anymore), hope, disillusionment, anger, innocence, and wide-eyed wonder as it gives way to the unromantic knowing glare of everyday life. Folk, country, indie rock, and jangle pop are unified by a ringing electric 12-string that acts almost as a narrative device unifying the disparate voices into a single broken, struggling, yet hopeful desiring machine. Picking out songs here is ridiculous. They all flow and bleed into one another as voices express from their own unique places that certain emotions, longings, dreams, and disappointments can be bridges in seemingly disparate lives. This is a gorgeous recording, full of complex emotions with singalong choruses and messages that bring light into the darkened heart. Nerissa Nields is one of the most empathetic songwriters anywhere. And with Katryna’s voice adding the dimension of heaven to her earthy view, This Town Is Wrong becomes perhaps their most focused, humorous, and poignant outing yet.

Sister Holler

  1. Leave That Trouble Alone
  2. The Endless Day
  3. Eloise
  4. Give Me a Clean Heart
  5. Who Will Shoe My Pretty Foot
  6. Moonlighter
  7. Ain’t That Good News
  8. The Soldier at Your Door
  9. That’s My Ship
  10. This Train
  11. Abington Sea Fair
  12. The Rght Road
  13. We’ll Plant an Oak

Sister Holler is Nerissa and Katryna’s fourteenth album to date, and it brings them back to their folk roots while at the same time showcasing their growth as musicians and songwriters. The premise of the album is that Folk music has always been passed down orally, and as such, it changes with each generation of singers and songwriters. Each song was inspired by a pre-existing song: there’s a revised version of the old spiritual, “Ain’t That Good News,” a modern sea chanty–even a version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

“Best of all,” quips Nerissa, “this CD is green: reduce, reuse and recycle is its motto. There are plenty of great old songs out there; why write new ones?”

That being said, there is plenty here that is new and fresh–long time Nields fans will not be disappointed and this CD is sure to garner The Nields a whole new generation of listeners. Produced by Dave Chalfant.