Alina Simone
(54 40 Or Fight/Topple)
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Everyone Is Crying Out To Me, Beware is simultaneously an introduction, an homage and a cultural cross-pollination. Alina Simone, whose stirring debut Placelessness came out last year, was born in the Ukraine, raised in Massachusetts, and for the last several years has made annual trips to Siberia. On this short album, she covers the songs of Yanka Dyagleva, a Russian singer-songwriter who worked in the art-punk chanteuse tradition of Nico and early PJ Harvey. Yanka drowned in 1991, age 24, but her recordings, which were never commercially released while she was alive, circulated as samizdat cassettes in Russia, and a few, such as Sold Out, have since been made available outside the country.
Alina Simone (not to be confused with the Simone who is Nina’s daughter) retains the stripped-down quality of the original Yanka recordings, although she occasionally sweetens the arrangements with mournful cello, trumpet or electric guitars. Her husky, introspective voice and deliberate pacing recall early Cat Power on the pretty “My Sadness Is Luminous” but grows edgier and more PJ-like on impassioned “Beware.” She sings these nine songs in Russian, but their somber, bruised beauty translates easily.
(Released on vinyl by Topple.)
Standout Tracks: “Sold,” “My Sadness is Luminous” STEVE KLINGE
