Regina Regina

So there was just no way that I could refrain from posting about Regina Spektor's new album, 'Far'. We have been listening to Regina for some time up in here, but I gotta say, I didn't expect this album to sweep me right off my feet like it has. It is an album filled with tenderness, delight, tragedy and heartbreak. So many of the tunes of this album are delivered in a playfully upbeat songs that weave a magical web right around you. However, there is this extraordinarily great thing about Regina... she wins you immediately with her powerfully rich, coffee like voice and cheerful sound... and then slowly you realize the shadowy, weighted lyrics underneath. And these lyrics seem to say some things you have felt or thought or sensed before, but could never quite put into the right words. It is a lovely little package that steals your heart away.

Perhaps, this captivating hypnosis that Regina can cast over her listeners is some kind of vampy dark magic that comes from the heart of Moscow (her home till the age of 9) or maybe it is just the result of hearing a true artist amongst so much of the clamour of an music industry inundated with "talent" that more the result of crafty studio execs and pr managers.... I don't know, but I do know that she charmed me completely as I listened to her lovely interview on NPR the other day, and I think that is what sent me over the moon for her. She seems to have this playfully friendly magic that springs out of her that is irresistible. That kind of super fan doesn't come out of me too terribly often. So I find myself thinking of the early Bjork era (before the days of Matthew Barry or the attacking of Japanese journalists and such) where everyone simply thought of her as this lovely little Icelandic fairy fluttering to and fro and producing magical off the wall sounds that could only sweep you away to some place with lots of colors.  

And yes, Rolling Stone calls often for my album reviews.