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People may finally be figuring out what we’ve known for a while now. Folk is good stuff, and the time is right to take notice. Whether it’s the natural result of the current state of affairs, the 60s all over again, or just another one of those cycles that pop music is prone to, it’s kind of inspiring to see so many different artists embracing the wellspring of 20th century (and older) folk and world music for inspiration. These bands and performers (Devendra Banhart, Six Organs of Admittance, Joanna Newsom, Jack Rose, Born Heller, Hala Strana, Kemialliset Ystävät just to name a few) embody the spirit of a tradition given to mind and soul expansion more than marketability. And for the first time in a long time, the performances and their subjects are actually deep—surreal at times, intensely resolute at others—and entirely compelling. This is music that actually does matter in an age when people regularly want to bemoan the death of the songwriter and openly praise someone like Coldplay as the second coming of the Beatles.

It has been an effulgent year in the musical catacombs, and one gem shines brighter than most: 23 year old singer/songwriter and painter Marissa Nadler. Born somewhere between the Renaissance and the turn of the century, she possesses the kind of seductive, velvety soprano that instantly burrows its way into the heart and soul. Doused in a wash of reverb, and backed with acoustic guitar, banjo, organ and more, the voice relays tales of fading beauty queens and sad souls lost in the shadows of introspection in a style that’s informed of old Americana and older English, but run through a post psychedelic prism.

"Ballads of Living and Dying" (Eclipse), an acoustic dream meeting between early Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, is among the most haunting folk debuts of 2004. Though it’s mostly her own material, two tracks feature the words of Pablo Neruda and Edgar Allen Poe sung by Nadler over her music. Hearing her interpretation of Poe’s “Annabelle Lee” is much like hearing some faded childhood memory conveyed with such an impressionistic touch, it may have just been a dream all along. Lee Jackson talked to Marissa Nadler via email in September for the interview that follows.

I have definitely wished that I grew up in a different time period. I would have loved to live in the Middle Ages, in the time of chivalry and romance. I would have loved to live in some small European town during that time (of course life was not easy back then) I like the aesthetic of antiquity, the wardrobe, the corsets, the long flowing tresses, the superstitions, everything. I do consciously, through my art, try to tap into some genetic memory of another world and another time. I like instruments that are very old, like the lyre and the harp. I suppose I would have fit in more in some other time period. It seems that the past is so much more romantic, although of course there were still lots of problems to deal with- like the plague, witch hunts, you know, the usual.

There are many artists that I find inspiring for what they captured or evoked in their work. I love Joseph Cornell's boxes and assemblages, Adolf Wolfli, who was an outsider artist that did all of his work in an insane asylum. The photography of Diane Arbus I found incredibly eerie and honest. His work is incredible. Egon Sheile, Klimpt, Alphonse Mucha, I find a lot of the art nouveau period inspiring, all of the ornate iron filigree and swirly women. Picasso's Blue period, Pascal Verbena. I like the illustrations of Brian Froud, who does mythical drawings of faeries. I really am very visually inspired, so I could go on and on, but I have listed some of my favorites.

I remember first hearing a Nina Simone version of “Suzanne” that was very upbeat but also melancholic and utterly gorgeous. "wearing rags and feathers from salvation army counters and you want to ..." I was very young at the time, but I though the story and lyrics were beautiful, so, I went out and bought songs from a room and a couple other albums on cassette tape. I was so moved by the records. I listened to the song that starts off, "It seems so long ago, Nancy was alone,.." over and over and over again, in tears. Each poem, because I consider his songs like poems, takes you some place. "Winter Lady”, “Chelsea Hotel #2", "Lady Midnight"--"that’s no way to say goodbye" I could go on and on. I really fell in love with him. For a long time, I started covering many of his songs and he was having a profound influence on a lot of the melodies and writings that I was doing. I much prefer his early work, I must admit. There is something raw and gorgeous and his voice had such emotion. Every song off of songs to a room I absolutely love. There is this movie called "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", I think I got the title right, but they use Leonard Cohen's songs for the soundtrack. You have to see the movie.

I love the movie "Days of Heaven" by Terrance Malleck. It is all sepia tones. I love scratchy grainy films, super 8. I love the movie "Paris Texas". There is a great soundtrack. To name a few: “Return to Oz” (this weird 80s sequel to “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy returns to Oz and every thing is turned to stone. The mean witch keeps beheaded beauties in glass cabinets and can change her look each day. “Harold and Maude,” at the end, when Harold is playing the banjo on top of the mountain.

I played "That’s no Way to Say Goodbye," "Lady Midnight" "Famous Blue Raincoat" "Suzanne" "Stranger Song" and the one that starts off, "I lit a thin green candle, to make you jealous of me, and the room filled up with mosquitoes...free" Being known as the girl obsessed with Leonard Cohen seemed a bit limiting...I have definitely stopped playing them live though, because I wanted to escape the Cohen reference, free myself of influence, and play all my own material. It takes more guts for me to play my own songs…there are no crutches involved. I never play covers anymore in public, only drunk alone off of burgundy wine as a kind of present. It is a kind of medicine. So, yes, off limits.

I have written many songs in response to characters in books, or in response to certain poems I have read. The paintings have always stayed in a separate world for me- The album being currently released (“Ballads of Living and Dying”) has two songs based on poems, taking direct passages and giving them melody and song. The interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's “Annabelle Lee,” and an interpretation of a Pablo Neruda poem. I love Pablo Neruda. He is so sensual. I do try to capture the essence of that moment when you look at a painting and get a feeling that cannot be expressed in words. I love Paul Klee, I think I forgot that in the previous question about artists. The juvenile whimsy accessing some kind of lost time of childhood....

Well, recently I have been listening to Joanna Newsom's album “The Milk Eyed Mender”. She plays the harp and sings like a drunken Appalachian moon child. It is really incredible. I am in love with the record, and I’m excited to see a new vein of artists that I feel I have something in common. It’s been a long time since I could identify with new music. I must admit I have grown up listening to music of the past, but currently, I love Fursaxa, and the first time I saw her in concert I was absolutely blown away with the sheer beauty of what she was doing. I saw her in an abandoned mill building venue, and it could have been years ago, any decade really, any country, any where at all. Her music is so strange.

And also, I really, really was influenced by Joni Mitchell, especially her early work. The album “Ladies of the Canyon” is a record that I listen to over and over and over again. Also the record “Song to a Seagull.” I think she is incredible...”Blue,” of course, is an amazing record. I really feel like she is deeply engrained in me...”Court and Spark,” “Hejira.” Her writing is so poignant and honest and I must admit that she is probably my biggest all time influence. Favorite Joni Mitchell songs include “Cactus Tree,” “The Arrangement”… I could go on and on.

I was in Florence on the Ponte Vechio bridge and I saw a dead dog floating in the water. I wrote one of my first songs about it, and I spent months working on the lyrics, drafting one after another. I really wanted writing to be an active component, not just an accompaniment to the melody and the voice. It was called August Rose. After that, I kind of realized how to make a song work. The melody and words are born at the same time as the chord progressions. I am traditionally rooted in a lot of old timey music so I honor simplicity and try to let the melodies just be. I really dislike melismatic singing styles. I write in the bathtub because of the acoustics, or in a corner, or a stairwell. It is important for me to have the songs bouncing off the walls and back at me so that I can hear the nuances. I have to be inspired, like I am being taken over by a force of inspiration, to write a song. Sometimes, I write a song or a story (all my songs are for the most part stories, very rarely in the first person) and I have absolutely no idea where the hell it came from, like once of my past incarnations was coming through me and blasting into modernity with some story of her life.

I think the words need to be there for me to have sustained interested. But, in someone like Fursaxa's case, where there is more of a Gregorian chant, layered operatic style going on, words are obviously not part of the whole feeling. I like distinctive voice far better than your average pretty voice. Strange voices have always been the one's that have made an impact. It depends, really. My favorite performers usually have both going on. I really like good writing, which is why I mentioned Joanna Newsome earlier. Reading the lyrics of her songs is like reading a formal poem, out of some poetry anthology. The writing is labored and perfected. I try to really work on my writing--draft after draft.

Yes, I definitely plan on playing more in public. I am kind of torn because the actual act of performance takes a lot of energy out of me. Of course, I plan on touring Europe this year- the idea seems very romantic to me. I write lots and lots of songs and just need to find the labels to put them out and the people to record them with. I have about a hundred songs to record, so, there will be lots of releases coming out. I debate never playing live at all because I have hermetic instincts, juxtaposing with the wanderlusting, itinerant gypsy soul.

Performing... It is draining, all of the nervous jitters. I do enjoy dressing up in long dresses and corsets, head beads, the element of Vaudeville. I am not the type that gets up there and dances. Instead, I think there’s an element of voyeurism in watching me play because I really need to remove myself and pretend I am somewhere else in order to get through with it. It is so hard when people talk through your set. You are trying to sing all of these personal meanderings of the mind, and you hear snippets of people’s conversations about getting wasted and what not. It cheapens it I think I may be too sensitive to put myself out there to criticism, but the allure of the wild road is enough to make me try it...

I am currently recording rough tracks for a new record. I have a lot of songs that need to get recorded. It’s funny, but the current release of “Ballads of Living and Dying” feels anticlimactic for me because it is not my newest work-the songs are months old, and I always like to be playing fresh stuff, the newest meanderings of my mind--I have a lot of stuff I want to get down, but don’t have the technological know-how or the money to record. I can't wait to get to the point where I can put out records easier. With the future record, I want to include some of my own artwork in the booklet, because it really is a big part of my life. I was so excited when Ed Hardy asked me to release on the label--that I used photography instead that are remnants of a love affair..fragments of my past..

I would love to hook up with a pedal steel player, record the record, and get it out there directly after, because the songs that are not on the record are of the same vein, it would be like a Ballads of Living and Dying: part 2...a saga. For a while, I have been writing a saga, an opera of sorts about this fictional character, Mayflower May. She appears in the song “Fifty Five Falls”, and also in “Mayflower May.” She is an old woman, once a great beauty, alone, and she wears a monocle.