2004-04 Paper

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REGINA SPEKTOR

THE EX-COMMUNIST DAUGHTER

IF YOU DISCOUNT THE STETHOSCOPE she's wearing around her neck, Regina Spektor looks exactly like she stepped out of 19th-century Eastern Europe—her head wrapped in a kerchief, legs swaddled in skirts, her light Russian accent betraying her foreign birth. The 24-year-old singer- songwriter is a Soviet émigré whose fami- ly left Moscow and moved to the Bronx when she was nine. That helps explain the title of her third album, Soviet Kitsch, an 11- song collection of piano ballads with ima- gist lyrics like, "I'm inside your mouth now, behind your tonsils, peeking over your molars." (She's a fan of literary funnyman Nikolai Gogol.) Her poetry is beautifully strange, but then so is Spektor. "So many people believe that their lives are art-worthy," Spektor says. "What happened to imagi- nation? I want to write a song from the point of view of a pirate living in the slums of Barcelona."

Laying claim to an interesting life is hard for most, but Spektor has little difficulty. After fleeing communism for religious free- dom (her parents were unable to practice Judaism under Soviet rule), the pianist continued her classical-music education Stateside. Eventually, she fell in with the anti- folk scene centered around the East Village's Sidewalk Café, and she developed her pop- song-writing skills. As luck would have it, the producer of Soviet Kitsch was simulta- neously shaping the Strokes second album. He introduced her to Julian and the boys, and the downtown rock stars took her out on tour with them. Now she's no longer an unknown quantity. As for the stethoscope, it's more than just oddball taste in jewelry. "A friend gave it to me for my birthday," Spektor says. "It's so I can always listen to my heart before I make decisions." * Jonathan Durbin • REGINA WEARS MAKEUP BY RIMMEL.

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photographs by Torkil Gudnason