“A sweet track where romance and melancholy marble together, the bright shimmer of the guitars evoking the celestial imagery as gala’s vocals hark back to some lost love.” That’s how we described ‘we looked like angels‘ a little while back, the lead single from nina gala‘s new album, swan heart, though the description could be applied more generally across the record itself. Written while living alone for the first time in years after the dissolution of a long-term relationship, swan heart finds the Baltimore artist reflecting on what was and what might have been with an almost reverent tone. One which explores feelings of longing, anger and despair yet descends fully into none, instead suspended in the strange wonder that things such as love could ever happen at all.
The mood is set by opener ‘a garden, a window, a wedding bell’, a slow and poignant track which plays like some contemporary retelling of an old folk hymn. “I left my man / I left my home / the alley cats / the furniture / all the paintings on the wall,” gala sings. “The wooden spoon / the sugar bowl.” As the list of things left behind grows, so too does the energy within the sound, its orchestral folk swelling with string arrangements by Jon Birkholz and eventually gathering into stormy tumult.
old scars, loose threads
the wedding bells in my head
blood brothers, best friends
all your promises
I asked you nice
then I got on my knees
then I got mean
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The title track emerges in the aftermath, shorter and sweeter if no less dramatic, the first of a trio of songs through ‘we looked like angels’ and ‘perfect, precious’ which evokes the very thing being mourned with the fondness of retrospection. Short instrumental interlude ‘healing’ refreshes the canvas before the second grand folk track ‘the river is mine’ announces itself. It’s another plus-six minute song which keeps its intention close to its chest as it unfurls, circling with a cryptic potential. “The river is mine,” nina gala sings with ominous weight, “not a glimmer in your blue eyes,” the track threatening to break into another stormy crescendo and finally making good on the promise.
After the slow turn of ‘tangerine’, closer ‘casalena’ charts the new position in which nina gala finds herself. One where old dreams have faded and the future remains indistinct. “I’ve played the virgin mary / madonna too,” she sings, “once I wanted to be married / now I don’t know what I want to do.” A track about moving on without a full recovery or clean break, pushing forward within the clouded confusion of everything. “It’s time to wear / my fathers name / can’t deny / from which where I came / but I wanna love / without all this,” goes the final verse:
pain and shame
manipulation
fantasy
empty dreams
haven’t I earned my place on earth
after all this suffering
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swan heart is out now and available from the nina gala Bandcamp page.