Jolie Laide w/ Nina Nastasia and Cassia Hardy

Jolie Laide, comprised of revered American indie singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia, Jeff MacLeod, Clinton St. John, and Morgan Greenwood (of the band Florida BC and other projects), planted its roots some two decades ago. Nastasia’s seven unique, darkly melodic solo albums were masterfully recorded by the late, great Steve Albini, and in the mid-00s, MacLeod and St. John’s old band The Cape May had just finished recording with the veteran engineer. Nina was next in line for the studio. A night of commiserating led to Albini suggesting The Cape May become Nastasia’s touring band for her upcoming North American and European tours, which became a fruitful collaboration and a longstanding friendship. Creatures, their lush, sprawling new sophomore album, envelops a dynamic range (roots, spaghetti westerns, post-punk, sludge and electronic pop) of sonic approaches. The through-line is St. John and Nastasia’s conversational, layered duets, with her disarmingly sweet, world-weary and laser-sharp voice buffered by St. John’s signature emotive tones. Powerfully poetic, often anthemic, narratives soar over Greenwood and MacLeod’s layered multi-instrumental wizardry: delay swirls and overdubbed toms, dusty, percussive rhythm, cascades of effected guitars and psychedelic glows. Fittingly, as their name translates to ugly/pretty, the band’s stories find grace and beauty in the imperfect with lyrics that ponder the existence of ghosts, depict strangers meeting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and an overlord listening in a holding cell.

Nina Nastasia
Acclaimed singer-songwriter Nina has just released an 8-song album and book Songs for a World of Trouble, dedicated to Steve Albini. It follows Nastasia’s 2022 record Riderless Horse, an album forged in the aftermath of personal tragedy and released on the Temporary Residence label after a 12-year musical hiatus. Nina and countless others were dealt a devastating blow just a year ago – the death of Nastasia’s closest musical collaborator and friend, Steve Albini. She says “the shocking phone call I received the night he died felt like the sky had fallen straight on my head, rivers surely must have stopped flowing and the mountains collapsed. The news was way too big to comprehend.” Songs for a World of Trouble is the first record Nastasia has made of her own work without Albini, but she notes he will always remain in the room as artists continue to make the music that have no other choice but to make. Recorded in a modest home studio a ferry ride from Seattle, it reflects her ongoing search for community and connection following her relocation to the Pacific Northwest.

Private stream for media:

“Nina writes devastatingly powerful songs of survival.” – The Guardian

“For all the raucous, brutal records Albini has recorded, Nina’s is, in its own way, scarier than any of them.” – Pitchfork

Cassia Hardy
Cassia is a loudish musician and songwriter from amiskwaciy, Treaty 6. As the singer/guitarist for the rock band Wares, she has performed at festivals and clubs from Dawson City to Charlottetown. Her music is voltage controlled, dreamy and deliberate, not raw but worked to a fine point. She recently released her first solo album In Relation.