New York City

New York City

In 1975 Jennifer Miro, Alejandro Escovedo, and Jeff Olener were shooting a low-budget film about a strung-out singer in a band. They soon evolved into The Nuns, a trio that blended punk, new wave, and goth into an esoteric style. They dissolved before their debut album surfaced, then reformed in 1986 with Jeff Raphael replacing Escovedo and made a sophomore album, Rumania. When that record’s fledgling label folded, Rumania disappeared into the ether until a month before Miro’s untimely 2011 passing. New York City is a reissue of this long-out-of-print album. It opens with its new title track, where Olener talk-sings like a young Fred Schneider over music that inadvertently recalls The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With the following “It’s a Dream” we get a better sense of the album’s power and Miro’s uncanny talent as she sings in demure and icy inflections over a synthy backdrop. The original title track is a dark-wave duet between Olener and Miro musing on “the land of devils.” The shimmering “Walk Through the Mirror” closes like a lost Blondie song.

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