Nicole Atkins finds peace in her darkness

Fade to black
By JONATHAN DONALDSON  |  August 9, 2011

nicole atkins
MUSICAL GROUNDING “I didn’t get into this to make music to clean your room to.” Says Nicole Atkins. “I’m not trying to make girl-pop.”


When a character turns to black, it usually means something particularly ominous is about to overtake their persona. Think Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, saddling up to Jabba's Palace dressed as a dark assassin. Or Spider-Man being overtaken by the ghoulish specter of the Venom costume.

"Or like when Batman became the Bat," says Nicole Atkins via telephone from her home in Brooklyn. The 33-year-old songwriter, who made a splash in 2007 with her band the Sea, is not only gritty, gifted, and glamorous, but she can also dish comic books with the geekiest of writers. She's got everything going for her.

But a lot seemed to go wrong for Atkins after Columbia Records released her classic-pop imbued debut Neptune City four years ago. The singer of the newly rechristened Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea watched everyone responsible for getting her signed to a coveted major label deal get fired within months. She then broke up with the label, lost her band, and finally watched a five-year romantic relationship fizzle like the Wicked Witch of the West (another character clad in black). The waters, once sparkling, started to look a whole lot murkier. As she says, it was time to take things underground.

"I spent so much time with Columbia waiting for them to get back to me on the songs," says Atkins. Overdue for an album in 2009 and on the brink of artistic indentured servitude, Atkins was put through the indignity of being told to write a hit single by record company executives looking for the next Alanis Morissette. "Rick Rubin told me in August that he wanted 40 songs by November. Forty songs by November? Fuck you! But I did it. I wrote 42. And I waited six months for him to say, 'I don't hear anything in them.' "

As much as you could say that everything went predictably wrong for a musical force of nature such as Atkins, you could also say that things went incredibly right, as well. Operating underground (as much as Kickstarter-funded tours with the Black Keys and Avett Brothers could be considered underground) finally made it possible for her to maintain creative control outside the scrutiny of what anyone, except Atkins herself, heard in the music. Change is a relief. "I didn't get into this to make music to clean your room to. I'm not trying to make girl-pop," she says with a hint of annoyance. "I'm trying to make a record that sounds like Derek and the Dominos."

Her latest, February's Mondo Amore (Razor & Tie) is much closer to Atkins's darker musical vision than the more pleasant facade of her debut. If anything, it's music to destroy your bedroom to — or someone else's. Mondo Amore's best tracks stir up a powerfully gothic, almost spaghetti western-like landscape of old rock and roll, blues, and country. Rootsy without being overly reverent, songs like the scorching "You Come to Me" or the cinematically melodramatic "The Tower" are the perfect vehicles for Atkins's tight, piercing vibrato and brooding poetry.

1  |  2  |   next >
Related: KT Tunstall | Tiger Suit, Alex Chilton | Free Again: The ''1970'' Sessions, Cardinal | Hymns, More more >
  Topics: Music Features , Music, darker, return,  More more >
| More


Most Popular
ARTICLES BY JONATHAN DONALDSON
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   THE RECORDED REBIRTH OF MEAN CREEK  |  October 10, 2012
    Outside their rehearsal space, Mean Creek are standing with their hands in their pockets, excited to dig into some discussion about their anticipated new record, Youth Companion .
  •   THE SIMPLE PLEASURES OF BANDITAS  |  September 12, 2012
    Simplicity is not always easy, but sometimes it's the surest path to style and clarity, especially when we're talking about three girls, three instruments, three singers, loads of reverb, no solos, basic blues beats, high-and-lonesome harmonies, and killer songs dying for a smoke.
  •   OUT: ONE NIGHT BAND FLEXES BOSTON’S MUSICAL MUSCLE — AND DEXTERITY  |  September 12, 2012
    If the theme of last year's One Night Band was fun, the theme this year was star power.
  •   GENE DANTE GETS PERSONAL AT JACQUE’S UNDERGROUND CABARET  |  August 29, 2012
    Following the directions to this special private set by Gene Dante and the Future Starlets was a lot like following a scavenger hunt.
  •   THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN’S PSYCH RENEWAL  |  August 28, 2012
    For anyone interested in gritty, stylish psych-rock with smoky swirls of noise and ambience, 2012 is a pretty good place to be.

 See all articles by: JONATHAN DONALDSON