Enchanting debut from Eastern Europe’s answer to Joanna Newsom
9, 11 August, 2010. Visaginas, a small town tucked away in the North-East of Lithuania, is notable for its nuclear power station (one of the largest in the world) and not a lot else. However this was the birthplace of 22 year old Alina Orlova, singer, songwriter, piano player, artist and multi linguist whose debut album Laukinis Suo Dingo, is set for release on the 9th August through Fargo Records. Launch of the album will take place on 11th August at the Vortex Jazz Club.
The album is only 33 minutes long but the 16 piano lead songs shimmer with an imagination and playfulness that can’t help but entrance the listener. Darting between ideas, moods and languages, her quirky take on Eastern European folk mixed with western pop is held together by her remarkable vocal talent. Comparisons are inevitably going to be drawn to equally enigmatic and vocally agile female performers such as Kate Bush, Regina Spektor and Joanna Newsom but at 22 years old, Alina Orlova is already blossoming into a truly unique and captivating artist in her own right.
Born in Visaginas in 1988, Alina Orlova grew up in this small town where, as she recalls “there was nothing to do. I learnt to play the piano but everything was geared towards classical music. I really wanted to find a way to express myself, so I began writing my own music.”
From an early stage it became apparent that her songs had something special to them and with the help of friends she recorded a handful of demos. After posting them on the Internet she quickly found an enthusiastic audience in Lithuania’s capital city Vilnius where she began to perform regularly. Without even releasing an album, Alina Orlova had become one of the must see artists in the capital. In 2006, when she was only 18, the readers of the Lithuanian youth magazine Pravada voted her ‘Breakthrough Artist of the Year’ for her song Nesvarbu. Several other awards followed and she quickly began to captivate fans further a field. In 2009 Travis’s Fran Healy fell under her spell, adding her song Vaiduokliai to his digital compilation Play, Stop, Rewind.
With more sophisticated and ambitious arrangements in mind for the album (prior to this she had performed all of her songs solo at a piano) she invited a handful of talented musicians to add baroque touches to her songs: a violin, an accordion, some percussion, a few studio tricks. Drums, piano and violin become one on the irresistible Slepynes, while accordion and violin infuse with the rhythm of a Russian polka on fan favourite Vaiduokliai. However, her fondness for the simple combination of voice and piano remains at the heart of her music and blossoms on several moving tracks (Nesvarbu, Menulis, Vasaris).
Unusually, Alina Orlova sings in Lithuanian, Russian and English. “Songs instinctively come to me in one of those three languages,” she says. “Russian is my mother tongue, the one I speak at home with my parents. Lithuanian is my second language, the one I learnt at school and the one I speak in the street.”
The album was first released in Lithuania to critical acclaim and set her on the path for an international career. In Europe she found her natural home at Fargo Records, who in the past have put out records by Emily Loizeau, Alela Diane and Clare and the Reasons.
Debut album 'Laukinis Suo Dingo' released 9 August on Fargo Records.
11 August, Wednesday, The Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gilet Square, London, N16 8AZ. Tickets £8. Bookings: 020 7254 4097 or online http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk.
