Early Spring Till By Nathaniel Rateliff
The first things you notice are the voice and the space. That voice belongs to Nathaniel Rateliff, a man who’s earned the twang and hard-knock weariness that shines through on his Rounder debut. The space comes courtesy of producer Brian Deck (Califone, Iron & Wine, Modest Mouse), who helped transform 8-track bedroom demos into miniature epics of contrast, beauty, and yearning. In Memory of Loss is a stunning, heartbreaking sonic document from a singer-songwriter who’s made his way from a childhood in Bay, Missouri (pop. 60) to the national stage.
Rateliff grew up of modest means, the son of devout Southern churchgoers. As a teenager, he stumbled across a cassette of Led Zeppelin’s IV abandoned in a local barn; he wore the tape out listening to it on headphones, drumming along with “When the Levee Breaks” and “Misty Mountain Top.”
After his father passed away, when Rateliff was only 13, he picked up the guitar. His mother taught him three chords, a friend showed him a few more, and there was no need to bother with lessons; he started penning his own songs on an acoustic. He’d later go electric, gaining an appreciation for the freedom of effect pedals: “I was really into making feedback for hours at a time.” Both impulses are present on In Memory of Loss, with its shards of raw guitar rising beneath hushed, insistent melodies.
Rateliff learned the piano, much as he had other instruments—by teaching himself. The first song he tackled was Leonard Cohen’s melancholy classic, “Hallelujah.” (That same mixture of the sacred and profane is recognizable on “We Never Win,” with its throwbacks to gospel vocal harmonies, Rateliff harkening to “an old time revival.”)
Rateliff began writing a different sort of song than he was used to: quieter, more introspective and patient. A friend turned him on to the bedroom recording potentials of the time-honored 8-track, and a new working method was born. “I just kind of went back to my roots,” he says. “It was a different sound, but it was still coming from the same place.”
“It was more about songs, and not about an industry,” he says. “It was about a movement, not about making money. I think we’re moving back into that again. There’s still an importance in actually writing songs again. People are interested in hearing things that make sense.”
“The one thing that made me want to write and play music was trying to get the same feeling that it gave me when I listened to it,” Rateliff says. “Like having an anxiety attack—where you almost start to weep, at the same time feel a strange pressure in your chest.” This persistent troubadour has struggled and persevered to this point; now, the wider world is ready for Nathaniel Rateliff. “In Memory of Loss,” he says, “is for everyone who’s willing to listen.”
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