You Follow Me
Encyclopedia
You Follow Me is a collaborative studio album between American singer-songwriter
Nina Nastasia
and Australian drummer
Jim White
. The album was released in Europe and Australia on 28 May 2007 and in the United States and Canada on 14 August 2007 (see 2007 in music
) and was the second Nastasia album released by independent British label FatCat Records
. This is Nastasia's fifth studio release overall.
Jim White is arguably known best as the drummer for Australian rock trio The Dirty Three
, but he had long been closely associated with innumerable other alternative rock acts, often spending years at a time recording and/or touring extensively with the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy
, Cat Power
, Bill Callahan / Smog, PJ Harvey
and Nick Cave
, among others; yet this is the only album to bear his name as a leading artist.
A non-album single, "What She Doesn't Know
," was released in both 7" vinyl
and digital download
formats on 25 February 2008 in support of the album.
, You Follow Me was in fact the first of these two albums to be recorded. Nastasia and White first discussed the possibility of recording a collaborative album while the pair were touring Russia with violinist Dylan Willemsa in support of Run to Ruin
; the intention being to record an entire album where Nastasia's voice and acoustic guitar would be supported throughout solely by White's drumming.
Prior to work officially commencing with Steve Albini
at Electrical Audio Studios
, White and Nastasia, along with her longtime companion Kennan Gudjonsson, rented a rehearsal space where they quickly recorded multiple takes of each song. Gudjonsson and White would then both return to their home editing stations to subject each recorded track to an arduous process of selection and editing, in effect creating a rough demo of a song by piecing together individual sections of different takes. This process would need to be repeated several times, however, as Nastasia explained, "Jim would play around with different things. He's a very intuitive player, and he could interpret the song differently every time. He sometimes went by the dynamics in the guitar, other times he'd instigate the dynamic change. And he wanted it to be very precise, very specific. He didn't want to improvise." These demo's were later used as guide tracks when recording started with Steve Albini.
"Our Discussion" was originally recorded with Boom Bip
for his 2005 album Blue-Eyed In The Red Room, where it appeared under its original title of "The Matter (Of Our Discussion)." Nastasia commented that her original collaboration with Boom Bip "[...] ended up not really working as intended. He sent me some songs and was saying, "Why don't you write lyrics over them?" And even though it was beautiful music, I couldn't figure out what to do with any of it. And I didn't have time to figure it out. I already had "Our Discussion" finished so I just sent him that. He did his version of the instrumental — he remixed it — and I really liked it, but we had played it before [as a band] and Jim and I [wanted to] record it [for You Follow Me]."
Nastasia later expressed some dissatisfaction with the album, stating that "some of those songs I felt like I really wanted to hear how they would have sounded on record with a full band. I mean, I like how they turned out, but I've played some of those songs with a full band since [the record was released], and I just... I don't like to re-record a song. I just feel like I should write another one."
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia
Nina Nastasia is a New York City-based singer-songwriter born in Hollywood, California.-Biography:She began writing songs in 1993, and released her first album, Dogs, in 2000. Only 1,500 copies of the album were initially pressed, with Nastasia putting together the album packaging herself in her...
and Australian drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Jim White
Jim White (drummer)
Jim White is an Australian drummer . He is the drummer for the Dirty Three, a band formed in Melbourne, but he has also played with a number of other groups, including:*Tren Brothers, consisting of Jim White and Mick Turner, guitarist of the Dirty Three....
. The album was released in Europe and Australia on 28 May 2007 and in the United States and Canada on 14 August 2007 (see 2007 in music
2007 in music
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2007.-January:*January 1 - George Shearing is knighted for services to music in the Queen's New Year Honours List. Evelyn Glennie becomes a Dame...
) and was the second Nastasia album released by independent British label FatCat Records
Fat Cat Records
Fat Cat Records is an independent label based in Brighton on England’s South Coast. Their output includes electronica, post rock, indie, downtempo, minimal techno, noise and punk-pop...
. This is Nastasia's fifth studio release overall.
Jim White is arguably known best as the drummer for Australian rock trio The Dirty Three
Dirty Three
Dirty Three are an instrumental trio consisting of Warren Ellis , Mick Turner and Jim White , originating from Melbourne, Australia. Since the Dirty Three formed in 1992, they have spent a lot of time overseas...
, but he had long been closely associated with innumerable other alternative rock acts, often spending years at a time recording and/or touring extensively with the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy
Will Oldham
Will Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...
, Cat Power
Cat Power
Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...
, Bill Callahan / Smog, PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
and Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
, among others; yet this is the only album to bear his name as a leading artist.
A non-album single, "What She Doesn't Know
What She Doesn't Know
"What She Doesn't Know" is a 7" single by American singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia, released on February 25, 2008 by Fat Cat Records.The two songs on "What She Doesn't Know" were recorded by Steve Albini in Chicago during the sessions for Nastasia's 2006 album On Leaving...
," was released in both 7" vinyl
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
and digital download
Music download
A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment...
formats on 25 February 2008 in support of the album.
Recording and production
Despite being released the year after On LeavingOn Leaving
On Leaving is the fourth album by American singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia. It was released on September 11, 2006 on Fat Cat Records. It was recorded by Steve Albini and produced by Nastasia, Kennan Gudjonsson, and Albini...
, You Follow Me was in fact the first of these two albums to be recorded. Nastasia and White first discussed the possibility of recording a collaborative album while the pair were touring Russia with violinist Dylan Willemsa in support of Run to Ruin
Run to Ruin
Run to Ruin is the third album by American singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia. It was recorded by Steve Albini at Black Box studio in Noyant-la-Gravoyère, France and at Looking Glass studio in New York...
; the intention being to record an entire album where Nastasia's voice and acoustic guitar would be supported throughout solely by White's drumming.
Prior to work officially commencing with Steve Albini
Steve Albini
Steven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
at Electrical Audio Studios
Electrical Audio
Electrical Audio is a recording facility founded in Chicago, Illinois by musician and recording engineer Steve Albini in 1997. Hundreds of independent music projects have been recorded there....
, White and Nastasia, along with her longtime companion Kennan Gudjonsson, rented a rehearsal space where they quickly recorded multiple takes of each song. Gudjonsson and White would then both return to their home editing stations to subject each recorded track to an arduous process of selection and editing, in effect creating a rough demo of a song by piecing together individual sections of different takes. This process would need to be repeated several times, however, as Nastasia explained, "Jim would play around with different things. He's a very intuitive player, and he could interpret the song differently every time. He sometimes went by the dynamics in the guitar, other times he'd instigate the dynamic change. And he wanted it to be very precise, very specific. He didn't want to improvise." These demo's were later used as guide tracks when recording started with Steve Albini.
"Our Discussion" was originally recorded with Boom Bip
Boom Bip
Bryan Charles Hollon, better known as Boom Bip, is an American producer and musician. His music is mostly instrumental, but over the course of his career he has collaborated with several vocalists. He is currently signed to Lex Records, which, until 2005, was a division of Warp Records in the...
for his 2005 album Blue-Eyed In The Red Room, where it appeared under its original title of "The Matter (Of Our Discussion)." Nastasia commented that her original collaboration with Boom Bip "[...] ended up not really working as intended. He sent me some songs and was saying, "Why don't you write lyrics over them?" And even though it was beautiful music, I couldn't figure out what to do with any of it. And I didn't have time to figure it out. I already had "Our Discussion" finished so I just sent him that. He did his version of the instrumental — he remixed it — and I really liked it, but we had played it before [as a band] and Jim and I [wanted to] record it [for You Follow Me]."
Nastasia later expressed some dissatisfaction with the album, stating that "some of those songs I felt like I really wanted to hear how they would have sounded on record with a full band. I mean, I like how they turned out, but I've played some of those songs with a full band since [the record was released], and I just... I don't like to re-record a song. I just feel like I should write another one."
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Nina Nastasia.- "I've Been Out Walking" – 3:18
- "I Write Down Lists" – 3:15
- "Odd, Said the Doe" – 3:12
- "The Day I Would Bury You" – 2:55
- "Our Discussion" – 3:05
- "In the Evening" – 2:26
- "There Is No Train" – 2:26
- "Late Night" – 4:00
- "How Will You Love Me" – 3:24
- "I Come After You" – 3:17
Release history
| Region | Date | Label | Format | Catalog # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... / Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
28 May 2007 | FatCat Records Fat Cat Records Fat Cat Records is an independent label based in Brighton on England’s South Coast. Their output includes electronica, post rock, indie, downtempo, minimal techno, noise and punk-pop... |
CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... |
FATCD53 |
| Vinyl Gramophone record A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove... |
FATLP53 | |||
| U.S. United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... / Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
14 Aug 2007 | CD | FATCD53 | |
| Vinyl | FATLP53 | |||
Credits and personnel
- Nina NastasiaNina NastasiaNina Nastasia is a New York City-based singer-songwriter born in Hollywood, California.-Biography:She began writing songs in 1993, and released her first album, Dogs, in 2000. Only 1,500 copies of the album were initially pressed, with Nastasia putting together the album packaging herself in her...
— vocals, guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
, productionRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, editingAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
and arrangementsArrangementThe American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents... - Jim WhiteJim White (drummer)Jim White is an Australian drummer . He is the drummer for the Dirty Three, a band formed in Melbourne, but he has also played with a number of other groups, including:*Tren Brothers, consisting of Jim White and Mick Turner, guitarist of the Dirty Three....
— drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, production, editing and arrangements - Kennan Gudjonsson — production, editing, arrangements, masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
, package artwork and designDesignDesign as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan... - Steve AlbiniSteve AlbiniSteven Frank Albini is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, audio engineer and music journalist. He was a member of Big Black, Rapeman, and Flour, and is currently a member of Shellac...
— engineeringAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including... - Steve Rooke — mastering
- DLTDLTDLT may refer to:* Dave Lee Travis, British radio presenter* International Conference on Developments in Language Theory, a computer science conference* Diagnostics, Log & Trace, a subset of automotive Operating System features, as specified by e.g...
— package artwork and design - Jos A. Smith — cover imageCover artCover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...
, "The Windblown Rider At the Lake of the Stars"