From Russia, with Anguish

August 8, 2008 by Rachel Eisley  Send to a Friend

all photos and words:Rachel Eisley

This Tuesday, I returned from a 2 month trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. The next day, I read Svetlana’s article suggesting that the BYT community not miss out on the music of Alina Simone. Upon learning of Alina for the first time, I realized I must cover this show and experience her music no matter how bad my jetlag (which is still in full effect as I’m writing this, by the way.) Alina is Ukrainian by birth, but grew up in the US, and has spent the last few years writing and recording her own music, performing with drummer John Lynch, and guitarist/misc instrumentalist Chris Barrey. Her current album, however, just released in August 2008, is entirely in the language I have just so painstakingly studied for the past few months (Russian). Alina’s album Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware consists entirely of songs written by Yanka Dyageliva, a punk-folk-poet-singer-songwriter from Siberia, who mysteriously drowned at the young age of 24 in 1991 (no one knows if she committed suicide for sure, but she did struggle a good deal with depression so it is thought likely.) Yanka’s lyrics are unsurprisingly bleak, and are written with the poetic intensity of Ana Akhmatova coupled with the social descriptiveness of Nikolai Gogol. Alina fell in love with Yanka’s music and was inspired to craft an album entirely of her music to pay a tribute to her incredible talent, which was so tragically cut short.

Being the Russophile that I am, it’s probably not surprising that I was blown away by Alina’s renditions of Yanka’s plaintive and commanding ballads. Even though even I didn’t understand every word, and I’m sure most of the audience didn’t understand either (confirmed by a moment in her set when she asked everyone who spoke Russian to raise their hand, and I was the only one), being fluent in Russian is not necessary to absorb Alina’s interpretation of Yanka’s music. Alina veritably channeled Yanka’s core despair and raw anguish. Her face and body contorted around the dark and melodious phrases, while she expressively gesticulated with her hands, as if trying to physically grip the immense energy flowing from her as she sang. The thoughtful guitar and drum work of her bandmates cohesively supported her vocals and while I very much enjoyed their performance as a group, Alina can certainly carry the songs by herself (as demonstrated on Alina’s CD which is recorded solo.)

I appreciated that at the beginning of the show she introduced the music and life of Yanka, explaining to the audience why she chose to memorialize her music through a cover album. Alina also took a break to translate the song titled “My Sadness is Luminous” , so that the audience could get a better feel for exactly what kind of lyrics would inspire critics to dub Yanka’s music as “Russian Anguish.”“I repeat ten times and again / Nobody knows how fucking rotten I feel / And the television hangs from the ceiling / And how fucking rotten I feel, no one knows / I’m so fucking sick of all this / That I want to start all over again / This verse is so sad, so sad that again I repeat / How fucking rotten I feel.” Lest anyone assume these words to be overly dramatic, consider the context: Pre-perestroika Siberia was not exactly the easiest/happiest place to live, let alone perform counter-cultural music as a young woman in the midst of battling her own demons. Alina’s comments in the liner notes of her album sum up quite a lot: “I’ve never been able to get the hang of American optimism… I guess the tendency towards dark thoughts seems to run in Russian blood. Somehow whenever I feel lonely or lost or confused or hopeless or agitated for no reason I can find, the only thing that makes everything go away is Yanka’s music. Somehow, the simple act of sitting down with a guitar and breaking the silence of a room…with these songs, feels like a kind of religious experience. Like a confession or a prayer.”

Reading this confirmed the impression I had already gotten from her performance – that to sing Yanka’s words and play her melodies has been a deeply personal and transformative experience for Alina that extends through and beyond what she shares in common with Yanka: Slavic heritage, a deep appreciation of “punk-poetry” and Russian counter-culture, paired with a profoundly simple and haunting folk musicality

Opening for Alina was Chris Carlson, who performs as Carlson. Carlson sings with a range, vocal control and mellifluity reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, but with a uniquely humble and unassuming intensity. He played a mellow electric guitar and sang solo, his soaring original compositions melding poignant lyrics with vocal improvisation. He played 5 songs: “bread is a body”, “sudden as the”, “ah, rigging”, “kendall square”, and “knacker’s yard.” After the show I was able to speak with Carlson, and he explained a bit about his music which I’ll paraphrase. He wrote the songs he preformed at the Red and the Black several years ago, and has been evolving them in different forms ever since. Much of his latest work (which can be heard on his virb site) is of a more experimental nature, electronic and conceptual (Tim Hecker, Luomo, Clark are big inspirations). He appreciates texture and interesting forms in music, and describes what he is inspired by/attempts to create as sounding like “being a particle, floating in a dark sea near ships.” His latest album, self-released in 2007 entitled “pas organ,” was a live performance from the 10 hour f(x) music marathon Miami, FL. Chris views his music as a constantly evolving process and is planning on playing more shows in the area. I am very curious to see what he continues to produce as his musical creativity is largely apparent, as is his ability to reinvent sound.

The first opener of the evening was Tre’ By Amara, another solo musician who performed soft plugged-in acoustic ballads, dealing with love and loss. He sang with heartfelt sincerity, even dedicating a song to his mother. His enthusiasm to perform live was obvious. He set the tone for the evening as one of contemplative and poignant.

I was highly impressed with this evening at the Red and the Black. The crowd was respectful and responsive; the room pretty full for a Wednesday evening. Both Carlson and Alina Simone brought such a range of emotional expression through their music that I was completely transfixed. In a world of often overproduced and sanitized music developed to reach a specific interest group or demographic, the music I experienced last night was a welcome reminder that authentic creativity is alive and well.

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