2004-06 i-d magazine

SHE'S GOT IT LICKED

Russian folkstress Regina Spektor: a self-confessed nerd, buddies with the Strokes and no relation to Phil... what a doll

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INTERVIEW BY LESLEY ARFIN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT JONES

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So, let me tell you a little something about my friend Regina Spektor. Actually, she's not really my friend at all, but I kinda want her to be because she's so rad. I pretty much have a girl-crush on her. Regina is a piano playing machine, and when she sings the notes bend all over the place and you kinda feel like you're inside her living room or on top of a mountain, and all the trees and all the animals are totally vibing off her singing energy; kind of like you're in a cartoon movie where animals can do that sort of thing. Her music is a little bit history lesson, a little bit ghost story. A little bit kindergarten playgroup and little teen angst. She went on tour with the Strokes and the Kings Of Leon but she's not known for that: Regina's not anyone's girlfriend just yet (except maybe mine, hopefully). Her new album, 'Soviet Kitsch', is just perfect for rainy days and sleepy-time tea.

Regina's originally from Russia, where she didn't grow up listening to Bob Dylan or Billie Holiday because her parents were, well, Russian. "Not only am I not in touch with reality, but I'm also from Russia. There's so much stuff that I only found out about in college. And people were like, 'you don't know Radiohead!" When she was nine she moved to the Bronx, started taking music lessons and becoming a big nerd. In that order. When she didn't feel like practising her scales, she rebelled and read Shakespeare instead. Why does it suddenly seem like Regina is from 1945?

Regina's music evolved when she started playing shows at the Sidewalk Cafe in the late '90s, which is home to the 'anti-folk' scene in New York and musicians such as The Moldy Peaches, The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players, Dufus, Langhorne Slim and a bunch of other nerdy art-folkie-anti- folkies, whatever that means. Regina has her own ideas: "Anti-Folk is a community of musicians. Everyone has their own opinion about what it actually is. To me, it's people who allow themselves to write and play and record any kind of song they come up with - usually with emphasis on lyrics. But in a lot of ways I never fit into anti-folk, because I have a lot of classical music influences and I like to write complicated and technical parts... I don't know, I don't think I have the defined sound of any scene, but I do have the punky sentiments that are associated with anti-folk." Regina soon moved on to bigger and better, recording a duet with The Strokes called 'Modern Girls And Old Fashioned Men', which is the b-side to their Reptilia' single. The song was recorded while she was on tour with them, officially making her The Strokes First Lady. There were rumors going around that she was going out with Julian, but Regina denies this, as she should. "It's like, how many times can a person say 'no'? How many times can a person say I'm a musician, this is disrespectful'? Look, it's amazing that I went on tour with The Strokes, but it's not my fucking claim to fame. I made music before then and I'm making music after. People who need to know me, know me."

Truthfully, she needs no rock star to get our attention, because so far, those who have heard Regina's music absolutely love it. Her sound gives off a kind of rare energy and magical spirit that is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell. She's the Commie Joni, the angrier Mazzy Star or, like, the way cooler Tori Amos. But she sings in such a spontaneous, poetic way that one can't help but be reminded of Van Morrison's 'Astral Weeks', especially on the track 'Carbon Monoxide', which is a dark delicious mess of notes and keys, with lyrics that are sort of sarcastic and funny: 'Carbon monoxide/soon I'll go to sleee-eee-eep/no-one will notice we're gone/cuz we don't have a job to keee-eeep/they'll just say we're being lazy/sex crazed sex crazed hazy/they'll just say we're livin' our life in bed/ and we'll be in bed oh so very much/dead-a dead-a dead-a dead/ but we're so cool/we're so cool/we're so cool.'

And that ain't even the half of it. Right now Regina's website is down, so I can't get the rest of the yummy story-telling lyrics she conjures up. Her music is often surprising, unpretentious, silly and even romantic. And you can bet your bottom dollar that she's gonna snowball out of control. "Just this Friday, oh my gosh, I get this phone call from my friend in North Carolina who was like, I'm walking by a barn right now and I hear your stuff coming out of the radio!" Regina is now getting used to her new home in SoHo, where she lives alone with her piano and, well, basically plays music all day. Tough life. 'Soviet Kitsch' comes out, like, right now I think, but she also has two other albums called 'Songs' and '11:11'. You can visit www.reginaspektor.com to look at cute pictures of her, find out when she's playing next, listen to her old songs and read her sweet little diary that she always updates. Start obsessing over her now before she blows up and you're stuck hanging out with all the poseurs during the Regina Spektor backlash. Go get fanatical and start a fanzine about her. Seriously. She's catching on like wildfire.

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The album Soviet Kitsch is out in June on Shoplifter Records.