What We Saw From The Cheap Seats (Deluxe Version) Regina Spektor

• 1 Small Town Moon 03:02
• 2 Oh Marcello 02:39
• 3 Don't Leave Me [Ne Me Quitte Pas] 03:40
• 4 Firewood 04:55
• 5 Patron Saint 03:40
• 6 How 04:48
• 7 All The Rowboats 03:35
• 8 Ballad Of A Politician 02:14
• 9 Open 04:31
• 10 The Party 02:28
• 11 Jessica 01:46
• 12 Call Them Brothers 03:09
• 13 The Prayer Of Fran?ois Villon [Molitva] 03:36
• 14 Old Jacket [Stariy Pidjak] 02:02
• Total Runtime 46:05

Info zu What We Saw From The Cheap Seats (Deluxe Version)

'What We Saw From The Cheap Seats' was recorded over an eight week period during the summer of 2011 in Los Angeles. Spektor wrote each of the 11 tracks on the album. She arrived at the session with a collection of new compositions, but others were pulled from earlier periods. She and Elizondo fleshed out instrumentation and sought to make each of the songs stand alone sonically. Most of the songs were recorded live with Spektor on piano and vocals, while additional instrumentation was added to these original takes. Of working with Spektor, Elizondo says Regina Spektor is that rare artist that continues to surprise. Just when you think you have her figured out, she knocks you out with something completely different. It s that spirit that drives this record. Each song takes you on a journey that only Regina is capable of providing. She has truly outdone herself.

Regina Spektor doesn’t write anything down. Even as she composes songs, hunched over her piano at the crack of dawn, she doesn’t record a single refrain. It’s no wonder, then, that she’s garnered a reputation as the oddball princess of baroque pop. Whether she’s mimicking dolphin noises, gasping gutturally between bars, or simply refusing to write down her music, Spektor is known for combining classical popcraft with distinct eccentricity. In the past, this technique has been hit or miss. 2004’s Soviet Kitsch was clever but underwhelming; bestseller Begin To Hope soared to critical and popular acclaim; and 2009 release Far strayed into nauseatingly cutesy territory. Luckily, Spektor’s latest album has hit the mark precisely. On What We Saw From the Cheap Seats, she offers an elegant and often dark collection of songs that masterfully balances maturity and playful wit.

What We Saw From The Cheap Seats opens with one of Spektor’s best songs in years. With lyrical leaps from complex imagery to poignant simplicity, “Small Town Moon” is an emotive model of classical composition. Next, Spektor plays with a tension between despair and exuberance on “Oh Marchello.” At times she sings in a dramatic and often funny Italian accent, before borrowing lyrics from Nina Simone’s 1964 “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” It’s a track that shows Spektor at her best as she invokes both a childlike sense of glee and an affecting plea for recognition.

Then comes “Don’t Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas),” a buoyant tune with a carefree air and a calypso backbone. Maintaining the fullest sound on the album, it harkens back to the early days of Spektor’s fame, when “Fidelity” played on every station and anti-folk was the word on every New Yorker’s lips. From there, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats slows down significantly with three gorgeous soulful tunes. Displaying her impressive range and songwriting talent, these tracks are like Spektor’s hymnal love songs to her piano. When she picks the tempo back up for “All The Rowboats,” Spektor achieves a menacing sense of urgency in her most hair-raising track to date. Haunting, insistent, and nearly bombastic, “All The Rowboats” describes images of art coming to life as “all the rowboats in the oil paintings / they keep trying to row away.”

What We Saw From The Cheap Seats continues with the cautionary, creeping “Ballad of a Politician” and the guttural “Open.” On the latter, she punctuates each phrase with a raspy wheeze that underscores the desperate undertones of a song both ominous and hopeful. The album winds down with “The Party” — the weakest track on the album, and the only to verge on Deschanel-esque levels of cutesy — and “Jessica” — a soft guitar lullaby.

Despite its impressive variety, or perhaps because of it, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats is fully cohesive. On an album both sinister and uplifting, Regina Spektor secures her place as the queen of quirky pop. Interestingly enough, Spektor recently told NPR that a number of these tracks are over ten years old, which, given her lack of written record, means they’ve been tumbling around her head for a full decade. And perhaps that’s the key: like Spektor herself, these songs have gradually evolved into the gorgeous and strong treasures they are today. Darker than her earlier albums, and undeniably more interesting, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats catapults Regina Spektor onto a new plateau of maturity and elegance. (www.prettymuchamazing.com)

Regina Spektor, Vocals, Piano and all Keyboards
Jay Bellerose, Drums, Percussion and Bongos
John Daversa, Trumpet
Danny T. Levin, Trumpet
David Moyer, Baritone and Tenor Sax
Mike Elizondo, Bass, Guitars
Aaron Sterling, Drums and Percussion
Jack Dishel, Vocals

Produced by Mike Elizondo
Co-Produced by Regina Spektor
Engineered and Mixed by Adam Hawkins
Recorded at Phantom Studios, Westlake Village, CA and Can-Am Studio, Tarzana, CA
Mixed at Can-Am Studio, Tarzana, CA, Seismic Audio Lab, Reseda, CA, and The Cutting Room Studios, NY, NY
Assistant Engineer and Mix Assistant: Brent Arrowood
Mix Assistant: Matt Craig
Mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, ME

Regina Spektor was born in Moscow on February 18, 1980 before the Soviet Union collapsed. Her mother taught music, while her father was a violist and photographer. Regina began learning to play piano at the age of 6, practicing her skill using a Petrof piano given by her grandfather to her mother. When the Soviet Union ruler Mikhail Gorbachev began his policy of perestroika in 1989, she and her parents immigrated to Bronx, New York City, and started a new life there. "We had to sell the piano because we weren't allowed to bring anything foreign-made out of Russia," she recalled. "It was considered Soviet property. I was so sad."

Lucky for Regina, she got Manhattan School of Music professor, Sonia Vargas, as her teacher. "She ended up being my teacher until I was 17. The Japanese have a proverb: whenever the student is ready, the teacher appears. In a lot of ways, that's how my life has been, there's been this kind of harmony with things - I wrote a few songs, then someone heard me and offered me a show; I decided I was ready to tour and then I went on tour with the Strokes. It makes you live your whole life differently. You can't just sit around, getting angry because you think you're ready. If you were really ready, things would be happening," she said.

On what kind of songs she usually wrote, Regina said, "I try to write songs the way a short story writer writes stories. I always thought, 'Why can't I write a song from the point of view of a man or a criminal or an old woman?' Obviously some of it comes from personal things, but it's so much more fun when a concept or idea pops into my head and then I pull on it and out comes this thing that I never expected."

Regina completed her studies at the Conservatory of Music of Purchase College in 2001. Becoming a favorite among the students at the Purchase musical community, Regina had a chance to team up with jazz bassist Chris Kuffner to record her first collection, "11:11", which was released as an indie record. The next year, she followed it up with another indie studio project called "Songs".

All her hard work was finally paid off as her talent was spotted by executives in Sire Records. Regina was signed to the label to release her third studio album "Soviet Kitsch" in 2004. Two years later, she returned to studio for her fourth set "Begin to Hope". Through the fourth effort, she made Billboard Hot 200 debut at number 20. In 2009, she dropped a new album "Far". It sold more than 50,000 copies in its first week, and peaked at number 3 on Billboard Hot 200. (Source: AceShowbiz.com)

Booklet für What We Saw From The Cheap Seats (Deluxe Version)