Nurse & Soldier
Marginalia

[Brah; 2007]

Styles: psych-pop, bedroom pop, electronic DIY
Others: Oneida, Magnetic Fields, Eastern Stars

Marginalia, the second record by Nurse & Soldier, is a bedroom-style pop nugget, made as a one-off collaboration between Oneida’s Bobby Matador and his “longtime” partner, Erica Fletcher. It’s a combination of Oneida at their haziest and most sedate, and dimestore Tigerbeat 6-style synthesizer pop. Sometimes the combination works, sometimes it doesn’t. The juxtaposition is clearest between the record’s first two songs: the pleasingly-droney psych “Green Tea” butts up against the reedy, drum-machine driven “Capture the Flag.” For all the languidness of much of the material here, it can be a bit jarring. Compounding the problem are Fletcher’s vocals on many of the songs here; on “In the Dark,” “Brought Up Too Soon,” and “Beatlemania,” she sounds a bit flat or robotic; with more inflection, these songs would gain some nuance and heft.

Nurse & Soldier don’t actually begin to combine both styles into single songs until “Lies & Alterations,” a classic indie rocker that finally brings the record out of the bedroom. From there, “Fishing” is a perfectly moody instrumental, and while “Beatlemania” crosses the “cutesy” line, “Satellightning” is simple and elegiac, while “Her Higher Education” ends the record on a triumphant note. The final score, however, leaves us with only two memorably-good songs (“Her Higher Education” and “Lies & Alterations”), some well-executed filler, and a few clunkers. There’s enough promise here, though, to give a listen to both Marginalia and what will hopefully be a third record by the duo in the future.

1. Green Tea 2. Capture the Flag 3. In the Dark 4. Back in Yr. Corner 5. Wrong 6. Brought Up Too Soon 7. What You Wanted 8. North of Baltimore 9. Imaginary Friend 10. Lies & Alterations 11. Fishing 12. Beatlemania 13. Satellightning 14. Her Higher Education