Z Berg – Get Z To A Nunnery
Metropolitan Indian Records – 10 July 2020
Part gothic romance, part French chanteuse, Z Berg’s new release Get Z To A Nunnery is unlike anything else you will hear this year. As an album, it covers so many different categories it creates an ever-shifting sense of reality. Playing on your expectations, Elizabeth Berg paints a series of pastels and watercolours that form a new vision of how to engage with your surroundings.
Dealing with the memories of a relationship is not easy to begin with, but when the affair is ongoing, it can be much harder. In this case, the infatuation is not only with a person but a place, Paris, and the song, To Forget You, speaks to the impossibility of this quest. Strings and keyboards fashion the backdrop for haunted memories, “Getting spaced and walking barefoot/ On cobblestones at night/ And now, I’m left with this aching/ I can feel you in my spine.” The city of lights, the city of love, ever etched in haunted moments.
The piano of Ethan Gruska gently finds a way to delicately delve into the brain, sketching moments that come alive with the strings of Patrick Warren. When the guitar is called for, Blake Mills adds a soft sheen to the proceedings. Together they envelop the music without ever overwhelming it. Theirs is a web used to ensnare listeners, while Berg’s voice makes it impossible to get out.
Like Chinese watercolors, the music of I Fall For The Same Face Every Time only begins to hint at the pain Berg feels. Still, the lyrics make that heartbreakingly clear, “Oh see, since he left, I find I’m looking for his likeness in the sky/ In falling rain, can’t say goodbye/ It’s not my way.”
Adding to the shading, Time Flies amps up the volume with synths and a huge bass line in the chorus adding to the pain, “Wild nights flickering past you like fireflies/ Memories hazy with fire light/ Gone in a daze of champagne and white lies.” Into The Night sounds like a miniature based on a piano piece by Erik Satie, while The Bad List is a duet of sorts, mixed memories of ex-lovers with Ryan Ross in the role of the male half of a relationship turned sour. Together apart they sing, “But there’s no bandage/ There ain’t no ballad/ To fix the sadness.” The fact that this is all happening at Christmas only adds to the pain.
While the shades of blue that Z Berg has chosen lean more towards soft pastels and washes of watercolour, Get Z To A Nunnery never suggests this is a woman ready to give up on love. Despite the title, she seems committed to the search. Hope springs eternal and so does love.
Vinyl: http://zberg.limitedrun.com/
Digital: https://ffm.to/ol9kxnq