Pages tagged “regina spektor”

For those of you beginning to hope for a Regina Spektor tour, things just got better. Spektor has announced a 26 fall dates in support of Begin to Hope, her disarming 2006 record.

The quirky chanteuse will also have a performance featured on PBS’ Austin City Limits, set to air in early 2008. And on August 28, Sire Records will release a re-cut version of “Better,” the second single off Begin to Hope.

Those dates:

September
16 - Austin, Texas @ Austin City Limits Festival
19 - Baltimore, Md. @ Ram's Head Live
25 - Northampton, Mass. @ Calvin Theater
26 - Storrs, Conn. @ Jorgensen Center
27 - Upper Darby, Pa. @ Tower Theater

October
1 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Agora Theatre
2 - Indianapolis, Ind. @ Egyptian Room
3 - Cincinnati, Ohio @ Bogart’s
5 - Omaha, Neb. @ Sokol Auditorium
6 - St. Paul, Minn. @ The Myth
8 - Milwaukee, Wisc. @ Eagles Club
10 - Detroit, Mich. @ State Theatre
11 - Toronto, Ontario @ Kool Haus
14 - Boston, Mass @ Orpheum Theatre
16 - New York, N.Y. @ Hammerstein Ballroom
30 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Wiltern Theatre
31 - Anaheim, Calif. @ The Grove of Anaheim

November
2 - Salt Lake City, Utah @ In the Venue
4 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Orpheum Theatre
6 - Austin, Texas @ Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
7 - Houston, Texas @ Warehouse Live
8 - Dallas, Texas @ House of Blues
11 - Kansas City, Mo. @ Uptown Theatre
12 - St. Louis, Mo. @ The Pageant
14 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Ryman Auditorium
15 - Atlanta, Ga. @ The Tabernacle
19 - Norfolk, Va. @ The NorVa
20 - Richmond, Va. @ Toad’s Place

Related links:
ReginaSpektor.com
Regina Spektor on MySpace
Video for “Fidelity"

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An alumnus of New York City's slow-burning anti-folk scene, singer/songwriter Regina Spektor recorded her last album, Soviet Kitsch, with Strokes producer Gordon Raphael, and managed to score a coveted opening slot on the band's 2003 American tour. For her new LP, Begin to Hope, Spektor recreates The Strokes' itchy hooks without sacrificing the high-brow finesse of her classical training; Begin to Hope is as elegant as it is addictive. Born and raised in Russia, Spektor relocated to the Bronx when she was just nine years old, and her prickly pop songs are still dashed with all the quirky, category-defiling flips so inherent to immigrant culture—rickety bridges between customs (and sounds), thrilling new discoveries, crushing blows and big stylistic leaps. Spektor gets compared to both Björk (for her eclecticism) and Tori Amos (for her emotional accessibility), but her sharp, naked compositions are more Nellie McKay than anything else, sprinkled with New York City grit and topped with a grin.

Regina Spektor’s latest release, Begin to Hope, drops June 13, but for fans of the quirky anti-folk songstress, a one-of-a-kind sneak peek will be available next week when Sire Records holds an interactive virtual listening party.

The event will take place at popular 3-D virtual world Second Life, an interactive online community. A free membership must be created to view Spektor’s virtual room and hear Begin to Hope. Users will then have the opportunity to discuss the new release.

Begin to Hope is the fourth album from Spektor and features Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi. Spektor opened for The Strokes on their last tour.

Far from being just another coy title from a member of New York’s anti-folk scene, Soviet Kitsch is the third release from the classically trained, Moscow-raised Regina Spektor, an artist who arrived in the United States just as the former Soviet Union crumbled. If it weren’t for a momentary breakaway run of Russian folk melodies at the end of the complexly rising and falling “The Flowers,” you’d never guess her talents have their roots on the other side of the Bering Straight.

Positioning her piano somewhere at the confluence of Björk, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and Joni Mitchell, Spektor—a 24-year-old with a powerhouse voice and profoundly imaginative arrangements—certainly doesn’t suffer from a lack of original ideas. True, her oddly metered, vaguely Beat-ish verse can be silly, naïve and frustratingly repetitive, but you have to admire her audacity in slurring lines like “won’t you help a brother out?” and “I’m so poor” in a little-girl Bronx coo. At times, it seems as if she’s donning savant-ish affectations. But the complex, constantly evolving arrangements in the tense mélange of frantically pounded keys and spiking violin on the svelte “Us” and the dreamy clip-clopping chords of “Carbon Monoxide” show too much seasoned expertise to be anything but the result of deliberate planning. Even though her work could benefit from some judicious editing, her idiosyncratic, imaginative songwriting should make her the antidote for anyone tired of the indistinguishable crowd of guitar girls and coffee shop crooners.