Three years ago I received a charming and highly original recording (BEGIN TO HOPE) by a young lady of Russian descent called Regina Spektor. As is usual here at Shakenstir we followed up a favourable album review with a live review, on this occasion at the wonderful Lowry centre in Manchester. Spektor performed without any backing instrumentalists and gave a memorable, joyful performance. She has a unique style of both singing and writing; a natural quirkiness and openness that sets her apart from many other singer/songwriter I know.

The success of the relatively low budget BEGIN TO HOPE (it went Gold in the UK and USA selling more than 1 million copies worldwide) has no doubt encouraged her record company to invest more heavily in production on FAR. The list of producers is impressive: Jeff Lynne (ELO, The Travelling Wilburys), Mike Elizondo (Dr. Dre, Eminem), David Kahne (Paul McCartney, The Strokes), and Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee (Weezer, R.E.M.). I’ll admit that I initially thought that this level of investment in notable producers may blunt Spektor’s special vocal quality. Fortunately Spektor’s heavy influence shows and she is named as co-producer on several tracks, however, there are a couple of tracks where I believe instrumental arrangements/production (while excellent) tend to marginally over-dominate.

The album opens in exuberant style with ‘The Calculation.’ It fairly bounces along with Spektor’s characteristic strong melody powering a song about life and love. It’s a great song but the first example of where the voice struggles somewhat against the rather crowded and loud instrumental arrangement. Not so the next tune, ‘Eet’, where piano notes and Spektor’s vocal really come to the fore in no uncertain terms. Spektor’s voice travels the musical scale and when instruments do dominate it’s when she is not singing. A lovely song and beautifully produced.

‘Blue Lips’ is a darker song where a battle ensues between voice and instruments but this time it’s an honourable draw. Like several of the songs here one has to listen at least a couple of times to appreciate the quality and adventure that lies at the heart of this great album. This particular track is one of several standouts. ‘Folding Chair’ goes into bouncy mode again with piano providing a joyful accompaniment to a driving and quirky vocal performance. ‘Machine’ takes a darker and more complex route with winding piano notes and multi-layered vocals adding drama to one of the best vocal performances here. It’s another special song.

The first single ‘Laughing With Me’ is another standout track with a simpler structure and a mesmerising vocal performance. The irony is that as a single it will fail because it’s just too good; there’s no inject-straight-into-the-veins musical ambience here, no instant thrills. ‘Human Of The Year’ is another musical wonder as an assertively played piano initially drives the song before it changes to a higher key in the middle-eight before reverting back to dark, moody mode. It’s a supreme example of how Spektor manages to write complex song structures while still managing to make them highly accessible.

‘Two Birds’ builds from a mid-pacer with flashes of ocean-deep trombone and then picks up pace after the middle-eight to become more rapid and rockier. It then slows to a crawl in the last few moments and I wonder just how she manages to pull songs like this off with such dramatic diversity of pace. But she does and wonderfully well. She does it again with the extraordinarilly complex ‘Dance Album Of The 80’s’ which starts with darting piano notes, and a  childlike phonetic vocal passage. It then strolls along, stops, starts, stops, starts, enter distant backing vocals, they leave, Spektor returns with her piano, pace picks up, pace drops, pace picks up - it’s bewildering and compelling.

‘Genius Next Door’ is a simpler structured song with its meandering piano notes underneath a contemplative vocal performance which is nothing less than superb. It’s one of the most, epic, dramatic, moving and beautiful songs here. ‘Wallet’ sways between vocal simplicity and instrumental grandeur, complete with swaying vocal harmonies. ‘One More Time With Feeling’ is a charming, simpler pop ballad, while ‘Man Of A Thousand Faces’ adds more drama to end this wonderful album.

Spektor is a unique musical proposition, and this album illustrates this more so than her last. And while I’m still unsure about the use of so many producers it remains a testiment to a uniquely talented and individual artist who is capable of creating the most complex but accessible pop songs. This is not an album with instant thrills but one that takes a couple of listens to fully appreciate its beauty and integrity. In short, it’s a wonderful piece of work.

4.25/5