Though the message comes in the form of a lush song, Marissa Nadler shows the dark side of love in the video she directed and animated for her song “Janie In Love.”
Nadler turns the concept of love into an unnatural force, one that breaks its target into pieces. “You’re a natural disaster,” she croons. “You touch and the earth will crumble/ You speak and hurricanes attack.” The black and white video includes stop-motion footage that is both beautiful and unnerving: a winged doll with its parts scattered across the ground, faces of sand and dirt that appear and dissolve, a snake-like creature made of clay that pulses and changes shape. We see clips of the singer walking in a desolate forest, but her face is mostly obscured by shadows, or blocked by her arms. Animated leaves fall and collect at the bottom of the screen, and the video ends with snow falling in the forest. The love referenced in “Janie In Love” does not end with flowers blossoming or the sun shining, but cold and darkness, making her message clear: This love was doomed from the beginning.
Marissa Nadler’s Strangers is out now via Sacred Bones. Order the album here and listen to “Janie In Love” below.
Catch her on her North American tour, dates below:
July 8 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court ^* (tickets)
July 9 – Denver, CO – Lost Lake Lounge ^* (tickets)
July 10 – Omaha, NE – Reverb Lounge ^* (tickets)
July 11 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th St Entry ^* (tickets)
July 12 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle ^* (tickets)
July 13 – Detroit, MI – El Club ^* (tickets)
July 14 – Toronto, ON – Drake Hotel ^* (tickets)
July 15 – Montreal, QC – La Sala Rossa ^* (tickets)
July 16 – Hudson, NY – The Half Moon ^*
July 19 – Boston, MA – Great Scott ^* (tickets)
July 20 – Providence, RI – Aurora ^* (tickets)
July 21 – NYC – Bowery Ballroom ^* (tickets)
July 22 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s ^* (tickets)
July 24 – Washington, D.C. – DC9 ^* (tickets)
July 25 – Raleigh, NC – Cat’s Cradle Back Room
July 26 – Atlanta, GA – The EARL ^* (tickets)
July 27 – New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa ^* (tickets)
July 29 – Austin, TX – The Sidewinder ^* (tickets)
July 30 – Dallas, TX – DADA ^* (tickets)
August 1 – Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar ^* (tickets)
August 2 – San Diego, CA – Casbah ^* (tickets)
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA – Echo ^* (tickets)
August 4 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel ^* (tickets)
August 5 – Big Sur, CA – Henry Miller Library ^* (tickets)
August 7 – Vancouver, BC – Cobalt ^* (tickets)
August 8 – Seattle, WA – Barbosa ^* (tickets)
