Run to Ruin [Import]

Editorial Reviews
Album Details
Japanese Version featuring a Bonus Track

Tracks:

We Never Talked
I Say That I Will Go
Regrets
You Her And Me
Superstar
The Body
On Teasing
While We Talk

Amazon.com

Nina Nastasia's previous album, The Blackened Air, quietly established her as a cult icon, thanks to its enthralling, intimate blend of southern gothic influences, country, and folk. With Run to Ruin, her third full-length release, Nastasia seems to recoil from the attention, filling the disc with dense, dark songs that are mostly fixated on unsavory subjects like drug abuse and toxic love. In contrast, Gillian Welch's stark Americana seems sunny. Yet the more Nastasia withdraws into her own world, the more attractive her music becomes. The backstabbers, sharp cliffs, and ambulances that litter unsettling songs like "You Her and Me" and "Superstar" prove that human condition at its worst brings out the singer at her best. --Aidin Vaziri

Customer Reviews:

Run to Ruin.......2006-03-10

This is Nina Nastasia's third album and i believe that she has truely gone out on a limb. This is a very good album, but it is also terribly downbeat, moreso than "The Blackened Air", and even more minimal. This album also seems like she's still experimenting with what she wants to do as far as sound, this album is shorter, but at the same time much more personal than her others. This is fascinating to me because the listener can see the gradual change in her style.
I believe that "The Blackened Air" established her intimacy with her music, and was more personal than "Dogs", but i feel that these lyrics are even more biographical. When i hear this album i cant help feeling like something very sad has just recently happened to her which has inturn made her music much more gloomy. All in all, i do not believe that someone new to Nina Nastasia's music should start with this album, but first buy "dogs", then progress to "the blackened air" then buy "run to ruin", i believe that that is the best way to fully appreciate this great album.

Run to Ruin.......2004-01-02

Nearly half of this album could be qualified as classical - which is a good thing. Somehow Nina Nastasia manages to move between genres without a perceptible reference, without using obvious devices. Comparisons to Cat Power and the like come from people who have a short musical vocabulary and who likely discovered Nastasia's music through indie music channels because her records are carried by the underground Chicago indie/punk label Touch and Go. Nastasia is a true original whose music will probably outlast current trends and will hopefully over time develop the wide audience that it addresses. Her careful use of words and elegant, economical use of expressive arrangements is remarkable.

Strangely compelling for something so minimalý........2003-10-30

Her music sidesteps easy categorisation, as it's beautifully minimal in construction, yet incredibly rich in substance for something so minimal......(and strangely so compelling)

Nina Nastasia creates unparalleled intimate spectral music, that is sung in a vocal that although highly trained is frequently just above softly spoken (although occasionally blossoming into a pitch-perfect orchestral ballad chorus), aided and abetted by incredibly gifted multi-instrumentalists that play a variety of classical instruments (Cello, violin, acoustic guitar, piano, accordion & Drums), and a feature the long forgotten "Bowed Saw" instrument , and contribute only the most minimal of sounds, to form a tenderly delicate and musically stark & stripped-down sound, allowing Nina's Vocals room to quietly captivate the listener...and the most remarkable thing is that its all so minimal and stark that theoretically, her sound shouldn't be so passionate & Enthralling for something so stark, yet it remains powerfully beautiful....

Similar artists are undoubtedly hard for me to compare her to, as she is something completely unique to herself....but if artists' such as The Black Heart Procession, Neko Case, Calexico mean nothing to you....then (and this is a very rough approximation) think an Orchestral version of "Portishead"....they share the same brooding sombre theatrics, dark gloomy instrumentation, Bittersweet vocals, exceptionally talented female vocalists, and have a sound that is completely unique to them....(although I'd really hate to say it publicly but `Nina's' work may possibly have the edge!!)

...Easily the most deeply affecting Album I've listened to for some time...

P.s. You'll really need a decent Stereo/Speaker set-up to really do this album justice, and to be able to listen to it uninterrupted....but if the right conditions are meet, then (hopefully) you guys will understand with it is I'm trying to convey in this Recommendation.

A Truly, Truly Wonderful album....

Not so much a southern as an inner landscape.......2003-09-21

I'm not sure why "southern" and "country" come up so much in describing Nastasia--at least on this album, none of the lyrical content suggests such descriptions, nor does the style of the music. It has more in common with New York Art Music of the Knitting Factory variety than it does with country. I'm also not sure about the Welch comparisons--I guess the fact that they both come from LA, and that they both avoid the traps that so many female singers fall into of over soul-ifying their voices, has something to do with it. In other words, both have a slightly more understated, unembellished style than, say, Avril Lavigne.

With what it isn't out of the way, what it is: stark, haunting music; loosely, expressively played violin, cello, bass, guitar and drums backing a clear and sad voice. The majority of the tracks, as one listener commented, have fairly simple song structures, instead building and brooding and swirling in dark intense moods. But unlike the other listener, I don't find this to be a flaw.

The albums highpoint for me is The Body, where for a moment the storm is cleared by an intricate and angelic melody, and then the band dives back in and murks up the mood again.

My one complaint about this otherwise flawless album is that, on a few tracks, after having seen her live recently, I think Albini failed to capture the fullness of Nastasia's voice--making her sound sort of childish and nasaly. I'd take off half a star for that if I could.

Dissappointing third Album.......2003-06-17

Part of my dissappointment at this record has to be due to the amazing 'The Blackened Air', Nina Nastasia's last Album which was an eclectic selection of fragments of songs and full songs from many different emmotional perspectives.

What struck me on my second listen to Run To Ruin was how there seems to be no song structure. She has a beautiful voice and the band are incredible but it's all mood and texture and no real songs as though she's written some words and all of the musicians are improvisising on a mood, she is improvising the melody and slotting the words in as they fall.

That's a cool way of doing things but for a songwriter with such a grasp of songwriting, who'se songs can twist you and turn you over three minutes, it seems a shame to just hear her lock into an admittedly beautiful groove and jam for three minutes at a time.