STACK #144 Oct 2016

visit stack.net.au

MUSIC NEWS

continued

INTERVIEW

REGINA SPEKTOR P regnancy and childbirth: they’re basically magic. Even so, Moscow-born Regina Spektor was “pleasantly surprised” with how inspirational the experiences were – even if she initially went into denial and decided the right thing to do was re-watch all of The Wonder Years . “I was very happy about that,” she giggles. “But I had a lot of support. One of my best friends in the world is a doula. She is just an incredible person and also very, very giving with her knowledge.” Spektor’s enthusiasm for writing took an osmotic form: “It’s sometimes hard to have a direct correlation with events and inspiration, but I think that you’re just in a very altered state, and it requires a kind of leap, the same way that your body just knows what to do to make the baby,” she explains. “I was [glad] that I wanted to make as much art as I did, and I felt challenged by it. I didn’t know what it was going to be like.” Remember Us To Life , the album of new material which resulted, is full of spellbinding

ideas crafted around piano and strings. There’s the sinister, thumping beats of Small Bill$ with Billy Holliday-esque whoops in the middle of lyrical phrases, the reflective poetry of Older And Taller (“’Enjoy your youth’ sounds like a threat”), and the beautiful Grand Hotel – Spektor's lyrics detail the cavorting of the titular lodging’s subterranean demons as they dance and kiss in a diabolical bacchanal, also somehow making their wishes and actions seem so human. (Even when they're "piercing fair maidens' chests with their horns", it's just part of the sylvan celebration.) It’s very reminiscent of Satan’s Great Ball in the classic Russian novel The Master and Margarita . “I re-read that book every few years!” Spektor exclaims with delight. “It’s one of my favourite

books in the universe. It’s funny – you’d think that [connection] would be obvious to me, but of course it makes so much sense. See, that’s the cool thing about putting music out there. It’s the reverberations in other people that almost create this sonar. You don’t really fully get your art that much, and some of it really remains mysterious forever. But sometimes, it’s almost like having the world be your therapist. That’s very cool.”

Remember Us To Life by Regina Spektor is out now via Warner.

FACTOID: In 2010, Regina Spektor was invited by Barack Obama to perform at the National Jewish Heritage Month reception. She played Us , from her 2004 album Soviet Kitsch .

I n a limited edition DVD pack exclusive to JB Hi-Fi, you can take a jaunt across the globe with the Netherlands' classical idol. Around The World With André Rieu comprises more than 11 hours of live concert footage, including shows at Vienna's Schönbrunn Castle, NewYork's Radio City Music Hall, and dates in Dublin and South Africa – all led by the talented hand of Rieu in a feast for the ears as well as the eyes (you've got to love those princess dresses). The four-DVD set is available now. AROUND ANDRÉ ' S WORLD

WHAT'S THE STORY? We have a look back at the fascinating tales behind some of our favourite album covers. This month: Island Life, Grace Jones (1985)

A fter the commercial triumph of comeback album of 1985, Island Records quickly decided to release a Best Of collection. Jones assigned her then-partner, photographer and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude, to create the cover image for Island Life . In what has become an iconic portrait, Goude compiled several separate snaps of Jones and constructed this lithesome Slave To The Rhythm , Grace Jones's

Around The World With Andre Rieu is out now via ABC Classics/ Universal.

and elegant – if anatomically dubious – pose, all before Photoshop existed. "Unless you are extraordinarily supple, you cannot do this arabesque," Goude has said. "The main point is that Grace couldn’t do it, and that’s the basis of my entire work: creating a credible illusion." Goude would later photograph Kim Kardashian for Paper magazine in 2014.

Vocalist Kimmy Stoka performs My African Dream with Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra

OCTOBER 2016

04

jbhifi.com.au