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Persephone’s Bees "City of Love"

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Get ready for Persephone’s Bees to get some serious blog-tastic love (already plugged here, here and here) in the upcoming weeks and months, mainly because they’re a really flopping good rock band. I, however, would like to be the first to publicly say that singer Angelina Moysov has the Siouxsiest voice since Siouxsie herself, and perhaps even one-ups her predecessor in terms of affect, which I suppose would make her Marianne Faithfull, but that’s neither here nor there. The voice, husky and feminine and a product only available as Central Asian export, vacillates between coy/mysterious and forceful/ebullient without ever betraying the songs it colors so beautifully. And let’s just get over the fact that she’s Russian, and that Notes from the Underworld semantically reimagines Dostoevsky in 1967 San Francisco, singing lead for It’s a Beautiful Day. And let’s get on with “City of Love” (mp3), which you’re listening to right now. And you’re hearing it surround Moysov with a dry-as-a-bone, Archie Bell-worthy bass and drum rhythm and Morse Code keyboards. And then rise and fall, stop cold and start again with minimalist precision. But then, oh, but then, the chorus swirls from nowhere in a multi-hued torrent of ska-rhythm organ and Eastern-Euro roller-rink slinkiness. It’s pastiche, pure and simple, continually adding and removing elements according to some internal logic I hope to never understand. Early contender for year-end top 10 after one listen.

Notes From the Underworld drops on Sony/Columbia (countdown to C&D starts…now) June 20.

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