Thursday, March 15   11:30 p.m.
Central Presbyterian Church   (200 E 8th St)

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  Nina Nastasia & Jim White - Jim's Room
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Nina Nastasia's rare gift of a voice is an intimate, winged presence that is able to either freeze or melt your heart, that can powerfully soar and twist, or brush ultra-gently against you, suddenly summoning goose bumps. Mojo commented on its ability to "suck the air out of the room". Picking over themes of love, longing and loss, childhood, dreams and human dramas, her beautifully concise, hook-laden songwriting and the spare arrangements of her band have a certain gritty, rustic charm and intensity. Simultaneously tough and fragile, her songs crackle and smoulder with an intimate emotional honesty and a dark undertow.

Now resident in New York City, Nina Nastasia was born and raised in Hollywood, CA. Having moved to New York on a whim, Nina has gradually carved out a career as a singer-songwriter there since the early 'nineties. In October 1999, Nina recorded the album 'Dogs', which would finally document this well-seeded life in music. That debut album came to exemplify her style - the delicate string arrangements; the restrained, understated beauty of her live band; the deceptive simplicity of her voice and poignant, life-wise lyrics. The recording necessitated that Nina and partner Kennan Gudjonsson establish their own vehicle for its advance, and the following year, 'Dogs' was released on micro-indie label Socialist Records.

The album would also mark the beginning of a lasting peer-relationship with noted recording engineer Steve Albini, who said of the record in an interview for Mojo magazine: "There are cruel ironies in making albums for a living. In the process of making a record, you hear it so many times that the charms of even the best of them can wear off through over-exposure. On rare occasions, records I've worked on have withstood this scrutiny and ended up being personal favourites. Of these, a good handful are beautiful and sublime, and I listen to them for pleasure."

In 2004 'Dogs' was finally re-released on Touch & Go, and Nina spent the next year touring across Europe, Russia and the Balkans, and starting work on new material. In that year, she invited friends Sayan Bapa and Kaigal-Ool Khovalyg, founding members of the Tuvan (Siberian) band Huun-Huur-Tu, to join her band for a special tour of the UK. The collaboration was met with much critical acclaim, and Nastasia has since made a side project of performing with Huun-Huur-Tu, most recently in Iceland.

In 2006, Nina Nastasia recorded a new album, 'On Leaving' (again recorded by Steve Albini) and signed to a new label, Fat Cat. The move from Touch & Go implies "nothing scandalous," says Nina, "just moving, the way you move sometimes. This is a good move all around." Nina Nastasia's long-standing peer relationship with engineer Steve Albini and musical organizer Kennan Gudjonsson makes its fourth iteration here, and 'On Leaving' is realised as well by veteran members of Nina's band, Dylan Willemsa (viola), Jay Bellerose (drums), Steven Beck (piano) and Jim White (drums).