Post by That Skipping Rope. on Mar 16, 2009 15:00:24 GMT -5
On the quirky scale, Regina Spektor makes Zooey Deschanel look like Jennifer Aniston. Everything about the Russian-born singer-songwriter is a little bit skewed-- her accent, phrasing, pronunciation, hooks. So, after toiling in the downtown NYC scene for the first half of the decade, it was a pleasant surprise when her 2006 album Begin to Hope cracked Billboard's Top 20 on the strength of bittersweet pop bites like "Fidelity" and "Better". Based on an advance listen to some of the tracks from her follow-up, Far (due in June via Sire), we can happily report that success hasn't spoiled Spektor's oddball charisma.
For Far, the singer enlisted a quartet of hit-making producers: Begin to Hope's David Kahne, Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Maroon 5), Garret "Jacknife" Lee (U2, R.E.M.), and-- most surprisingly-- ELO frontman/Paul McCartney and George Harrison collaborator/Traveling Wilburys member/overall rock'n'roll institution Jeff Lynne.
Though her production collaborators come from a wide range of backgrounds, it's tough to mistake Spektor for anyone else. Among the songs that may be included on the record (the tracklist has yet to be set), there are dark narratives ("Genius Next Door"), sprightly sure-to-be hits ("The Calculation"), and some trademark goofiness ("Folding Chair", which features Spektor doing an uncanny dolphin imitation). As she gets ready to work on the final mixes for Far, Spektor took some time out to talk to us about her creative process, working with Jeff Lynne, and her sci-fi prediction for the year 2309.
Pitchfork: On the record, you worked with four producers with pretty different styles: Jeff Lynne, Mike Elizondo, "Jacknife" Lee, and David Kahne. Were you worried about creating a cohesive sound?
Regina Spektor: That question never entered my mind. I just thought, "I'll work with a few producers, learn from each one, and I'll have a record." I'm pretty much stuck sounding like myself so it's going to be cohesive in a way. And matching producers with songs was done kind of thoughtlessly-- it wasn't like I was sitting there thinking, "Well, this person would make more sense with this song." I didn't do research or anything like that. It's almost like throwing stuff on the floor and seeing how it lands, you know?
Pitchfork: So you didn't have any sort of grand scheme in mind, necessarily.
RS: I'd like to say I did but I really didn't. With novels or operas or other grand works of art I'm like, "Wow, how the f**k did you do that?" I'm much more on the level of understanding how someone can draw a picture or write a poem or short story. I'm into immediate gratification. I have enough of an attention span to follow through on one concept...and then I'm bored. If artists were machines, then I'm just a different kind of machine.
Pitchfork: So if you were a machine you'd be, like, a toaster?
RS: [makes ding sound] Yeah, I'd probably be a toaster [laughs]. Actually, I'd be a toaster oven because they're more versatile. And I like making grilled cheese.
Pitchfork: Jeff Lynne is a real old-school rock'n'roll great, how did you hook up with him? Were you a big fan of his before you guys started working together?
RS: It's kind of funny. Actually, it's kind of sad-- I didn't know who he was or what he had done when I asked him if he'd like to produce some songs. I'm the opposite of a knowledgeable music aficionado; tomorrow, I could discover an amazing artist that people have been listening to for the past 60 years and be, like, "wow."
The reason I asked to contact Jeff was because I saw he produced the last Tom Petty record, Highway Companion, which I really loved. I noted him down so next time I did a record I could actually tell people, like, "I have a few producers I'd like to check out." I remember the silence on the phone when I said the name "Jeff Lynne" to Tom Whalley, the president of Warner Bros. But Tom was really positive about it.
By the time I was about to meet Jeff I was sufficiently nervous. But he's really sweet. We drank a lot of tea. And after I worked with him, I started to understand, like, "Oh yeah! That's Jeff-- I know that song." Sometimes you know the song or voice but you have no idea who sings it. But Jeff's definitely in the world of legends. He had these banjoleles-- a mix between a banjo and a ukulele-- and I picked one up and he was like, "Yeah, George [Harrison] gave that to me." I was like, "Oh my god," and then put it down.
Pitchfork: After you learned more about his background, did you think, "Oh, he probably won't work with me"?
RS: No. The myth of rock'n'roll doesn't weigh heavily on me. If, god forbid, he wasn't cool and didn't do good stuff with my music, I wouldn't have been thinking about what he's done in the past or who he is. I mean, I didn't even know any Traveling Wilburys stuff until after I worked with him. I think the exciting thing about Jeff is that he made amazing stuff just recently. I feel like he was really inspiring when I was working with him and wasn't just resting on his laurels.
Pitchfork: One of the Jeff Lynne-produced songs is called "The Wallet" and it's about finding someone else's wallet, then finding a Blockbuster card in the wallet, and then returning the wallet back to a Blockbuster. It's great. But, listening to it, I couldn't help but think: "Who goes to Blockbuster anymore?"
RS: That's funny because I wrote that song a bunch of years ago and I remember playing it on tour and thinking, "Do they even know what Blockbuster is in other countries?" Now I might need to change it to Netflix. [laughs]
It's like one of those songs that you listen to from the 20s and ask, "What's a kaputnik?" It's this thing that was obviously very important because they're singing about it, but it just doesn't exist anymore. That's why Bach and Mozart had it right by not putting in any words and making timeless instrumental music. In 300 years, when our great-great-great-grandchildren are checking out music by putting their finger into entertainment sockets, they're not going to know what "Blockbuster" or "Netflix" or "Juicy Fruit" are. They'll be like, "What's fruit?" They'll probably be living in a cement pod and eating food through intravenous tubes. They're not going to know any of this sh*t.
Pitchfork: Wow, I didn't think about it that way.
RS: [laughs] Maybe there is a grand scheme in me somewhere.
pitchfork.com/news/34833-regina-spektor-reveals-new-album-ifari/
I am so excited for this. I love her so much.
