Time Out NY
Jay Ruttenberg
Julia Vorontsova
Pianos Upstairs Lounge; Sun 13, Jun 20,27
Maxwell's; Sat 12
The song begins with mournful acoustic
guitar and the deep, doleful voice of a woman singing in
Russian. Like many compositions by its mouthpiece and author,
Julia Vorontsova, it would fit nicely over the end credits of a
bleak movie about Soviet-era espionage, just after the hero's
been gunned down.Yet shortly after this opening, with little
warning, Vorontsova interrupts plaintive croon and begins to
meow. Of the 24 numbers on her new From St. Petersburg with
Love (Abaton Book Company), "One Kitten" is alone in
featuring cat impressions - but it is one of many to find its
singer acting exceedingly stern and playful simultaneously.
The 21-year old St. Petersburg native, who
now lives in Jersey City, is one of two talented Russian to be
making waves in downtown rock clubs - the other being Regina
Spektor, who titled her most recent album Soviet Kitsch. But
Spektor performs English-language songs informed by indie rock
and jazz; Vorontsova writes folk music exclusively in her
native tongue. Onstage, she resembles a strangely dour singing
doll, pausing between numbers to explain her lyrics: Often,
they draw upon cities where she once lived - memories of a
St.Petersburg horseshoe or a Warsaw streetcar. It is impossible
for those unversed in Russian to understand her words, but
Vorontsova's grim murmur and guitar place her in a handsome
expat tradition, recalling the past while singing to the
future.
