Natalie Bergman

Natalie Bergman is back and just in the nick of time. The velvet voiced songstress who set the world a-smoulder with her gospel drenched debut “Mercy” (Third Man, 2022), fans the flame with her new knock-out super disc “My Home is Not in this World,” and we can only say “burn, baby, burn!” The title lays it on the table; “My Home is Not in this World” is an album that addresses the sense of exile — aesthetic, political, and emotional — in the contemporary context. This record is an outsider. It’s got hooks, charm, wit, & might even whisper in your ear to tell you things will be alright. But it won’t blend in with the increasingly innocuous & robotic sounds played on the radio. In a world too often caught up in cynicism, apathy, and fearful conformity, “My Home Is Not In this World” is a testimonial to vulnerability, feeling, and soul.

In Bergman’s estimation: “I am in the business of writing about love, because that’s what I have, you know? That’s the gift God gave me; my ability to love and to write about it.”

“I’m from Chicago, so there was a lot of Chicago soul that my parents listened to, gospel and Motown; and all of the surrounding cities were making this beautiful, soulful music. So that has been a big inspiration in my life.”

Natalie Bergman lives in Los Angeles but her music is universal; it lives in the hearts and minds and souls of her fellow travelers; born again believers in love, joy, and music’s role as guiding light and lightning rod. Her new record is a transmission, a clarion call to all those disaffected by the digital morass; looking for their kin. Blues, gospel, folk, soul, country, rock ’n’ roll – the best byproducts of the USA –compressed into bite sized salves to heal the angst and loneliness that haunt the modern psyche; smooth as silk electro-shock to chase off alienation.

Natalie Bergman – with brother Elliot as producer – recorded “My Home ..” with the Dap-Tone rhythm-section on an Ampex magnetic tape machine and then taped the tape onto more tape in a perverse gesture of analog absolutism; an extravagant act of defiance against the digital monolith.

Bergman’s first record “Mercy” was a paean to her parents who she lost suddenly, tragically, in a car accident. “My Home is not in this World,” on the other hand, was inspired by new love and new life; the bond with her soul partner and birth of her baby. “My last record was so straightforward and conceptual; it was an introspective body of work. This one stemmed from a place of new life. I was in a new relationship. I had a new child. The first album was very much about death. And this one was really birthed from new life, which was what inspired and prompted me to start writing again. I went through a few years of deep grief and wasn’t able to write music until I had Arthur.”

The record release date is June 13th. It’s a record that will be born under the sign of Gemini and it, as its sign has ordained, shall have a dual nature. It was recorded half in the woods near Chicago with Natalie’s brother Elliott producing, amongst the finches and fauna of their childhood, with the other half recorded in Los Angeles and NYC with trusted session players. The Gemini is on the eternal search for their twin and, while “Mercy” was an ode to faith and a song of love for the departed, “My Home Is Not In this World” is a call to comrades; a missive to help locate one’s “other”; the lovers, seekers, and believers who are on the hunt for something that makes some sense in this topsy turvy time of despair.

KCRW Presents: Natalie Bergman live at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever on Friday, July 25.