Regina Spektor – neue Musik für das deprimierte CD-Regal

Nach­dem ges­tern eine wei­tere Hiwi-Stellen-Absage meine Laune in den Abgrund riss, hei­terte mich Sven mit einer neuen Musi­k­ent­de­ckung auf: Regina Spek­tor heißt die Mischung aus Norah Jones (Kla­vier) und Nel­lie McKay (Texte, Melo­dien) die die Laune schnell wie­der hob.

In der NY Times schreibt Jon Par­e­les über sie:

Regina Spek­tor

„Begin to Hope“ (Sire)

Regina Spek­tor is the queen of the quiz­zi­cal. She has a sweetly good‑

humo­red voice, some clas­si­cal piano trai­ning from her childhood in Rus­sia and a gift for soun­ding far more naïve than she is. On her new album, „Begin to Hope,“ she asks poin­ted ques­ti­ons like, „If Ⅰ kiss you where it’s sore/Will you feel bet­ter, bet­ter, better/Will you feel anything at all?“ She makes obser­va­tions like „Sum­mer in the city means clea­vage.“ And she can unfurl a poe­tic illo­gic that can be roman­tic or hard-nosed.

Ms. Spektor’s first three albums were low-budget, bare-bones pro­duc­tions: mostly just Ms. Spek­tor accom­pany­ing her­self on piano, with songs muta­ting to fol­low her whims. „Begin to Hope“ is slightly less head­strong. It clo­aks its­elf as pop, with more love songs, care­fully balan­ced melo­dies, some deco­rous string arran­ge­ments and, in „Bet­ter,“ some rock gui­tar by Nick Valensi from the Strokes.

The songs are pretty on first lis­ten­ing, and some of Ms. Spektor’s strai­ght­for­ward love songs, like „Fide­lity“ and „Field Below,“ reveal a gor­ge­ously unguar­ded yearning. But she doesn’t hide her quirks else­where. „That Time,“ a rocker that hints at PJ Har­vey, sha­res memo­ries of a Lower East Side romance that inclu­ded two over­do­ses. The perky „On the Radio“ has lyrics about, among other things, an epi­de­mic, the nature of life (“You’re young until you’re not/You love until you don’t“) and the inor­di­nate length of Guns N‘ Roses‘ „Novem­ber Rain.“

In „Lady“ Ms. Spek­tor sum­mons the sound and spi­rit of Bil­lie Holi­day, vowing, „I can sing this song so blue that you will cry in spite of you.“ And in „20 Years of Snow“ she envi­si­ons a woman as pure as „20 years of stran­gers loo­king into each others‘ eyes“ as her piano ripp­les through chro­ma­tic and whole-tone har­mo­nies while elec­tro­nics and strings wink into earshot.

„Begin to Hope“ pro­ves that Ms. Spek­tor can write pop songs when she wants to. But pop is far from the only thing she wants.

Die Frau macht Spaß, hei­tert mit hel­ler Stim­mer und flot­ten Melo­dien auf und bringt ein star­kes Piano mit. Mir gefällts!

PS: Und wer nun denkt mir sind als ers­tes die auf dem Wiki­pe­dia­bild evtl. als rot zu inter­pre­tie­ren­den Haare und Löck­chen auf­ge­fal­len, der irrt – Sven war aus 3 ⅿ Ent­fer­nung (!) schnel­ler.

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