The Blackened Air by Nina Nastasia

The Blackened Air, Nina Nastasia's second album, came out on Touch and Go in 2002, and it's the sound of a room full of musicians holding their breath. Steve Albini recorded it at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago over six days in 2001, with the band arranged in a semicircle in one corner and nearly everything cut live, so every scrape and breath in the room seems to make it onto the tape.

Nastasia, the Los Angeles native whose debut Dogs had been picked up by John Peel, writes folk and country songs with a gothic chill running through them, and "Ugly Face" is as stark as its title. The closing "That's All There Is" is a holdover from the Dogs sessions, and her father Jim painted the cover, taking his cue from the track "Ocean".

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