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The Nields
From
one of the best loved indie bands of the ‘90s comes Nerissa & Katryna
Nields; a duo who marry alt country to classic folk rock and make
the listener feel both transported and, well, listened to, all at
the same time. The duo often receive letters saying, "Your song
tells my story. How did you know?" On their new Zoë/Rounder CD,
Love and China (their first duo outing and tenth counting their
work with The Nields, the band they founded in 1991), the sisters
push their art to the next level with a collection of songs that
are personal, dynamic, and sublimely beautiful. Nerissa & Katryna,
sisters who have been singing together since they were children,
are seasoned performers who simply love to sing, alone and together.
When they sing together, their voices blend to form a kind of third
voice, made of all the love and strength and years that exist between
them. There is something at once thrilling and comforting about
the way their voices dip together, merge, and then emerge, independent;
two streams pouring into one another over a rocky fall, and dividing
again to go their separate ways at the bottom. This joining of the
voices gives the lyrics an almost incantatory power, and is the
musical equivalent of spun gold.
After college in Connecticut in the early '90s (Nerissa went to Yale, Katryna to Trinity), Nerissa & Katryna launched their music career in the New England coffeehouse folk circuit. By 1995 they had put together a five-piece folk-rock band and started touring nationally as The Nields. Between 1994 and 2000, the Nields released six full length CDs, supporting their albums with tour dates that took them all over North America, playing well over 200 dates a year. Triple A and college radio embraced the band, making songs like "Best Black Dress," "Gotta Get Over Greta" and "Easy People" familiar to legions of music fans. The band sold close to 100,000 records and became the darlings of the Folk Festival circuit. In the summer of 1998, Nerissa & Katryna were asked to play Lilith Fair without the boys in their band. "I was afraid at first," admits Nerissa Nields, the older of the two sisters. "But suddenly while I was up on stage with Katryna, I realized our voices were taking up so much of the space that I’d always assumed the whole band was filling. And I knew we’d be ok on our own." Within a year, the duo was opening for Cry Cry Cry, doing a tour of Alaska, playing the Newport Folk Festival and becoming a bona fide act of its own. "We are able to get really intimate with the audience now as a duo," says Katryna. "Our shows are spontaneous. Really it’s just Nerissa and me continuing the dialogue we’ve been having all day in the van. We have a lot of observations that we just have to share with each other, even if they occur to us onstage. We try first to crack each other up, and somehow it seems to work that the audience is amused too." Additional information can be found at nields.com. |
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