Shiny & New Turns 2: #16 "Us" - Regina Spektor

"We're living in a den of thieves / Rummaging for answers in the pages"

Regina Spektor is an extraordinary storyteller and woman of almost limitless imagination, like her piano-based musical mother Tori Amos and grandmother Kate Bush. She uses elements of folk music and mythology to weave incredibly potent narrative into her work, and she uses the drama and resourcefulness of classical music as a benchmark for her often epic, structurally complex work. But of course, you already knew that. Regina Spektor is incredible, and we already dedicated an entire essay/album review to her when her last work was released.

Although the first Regina song I ever had the pleasure to hear was "Consequence of Sounds", with its entirely unique clattering one-note piano part, "Us" was the first Spektor song to blow me away with its billowy tempo and buzzing, hovering strings. The lyrics speak of statues and strangers - tourists and monuments - and can be variously interpreted as a comment on the mistreatment of (and victim blaming aimed at) immigrants or a surreal description of an imaginary city and the peculiar behaviour of its inhabitants. Either way its a pleasure to hear, and laced with the trademark knowing and bittersweet edge that make Regina not just a twee palatable folk confection, but a visionary singer/songwriter and an artist whose albums now debut as higher than Rihanna's in America.