Keren Ann

Keren Ann, who divides her time between Paris and New York, has created a theme album that captures the feeling of being alone in a new town and excited about the future, but missing your old life. Her French tracks play like moody nocturnal memories, while the American ones have a sweeter -- but more vulnerable -- feeling. The more you listen, the more special it becomes.

Born in Israel to a Russian-Israeli father and Dutch-Japanese mother, raised in Paris and now
living in the Manhattan neighborhood from which this album takes its title, Keren Ann Zeidel
creates bilingual chamber pop that suggests French Sixties chanteuse Franbroise Hardy
whispering ballads from the first Velvet Underground album. Like her 2004 English-language
debut, Not Going Anywhere, and her previous French disques, Keren Ann's four... More >

I know melancholy is as universal as joy, and considerably more common to boot, but that's no reason to celebrate it. After all, the same can be said of sloth and will. And while this Javanese-Dutch-Russian-Israeli French succès d'estime obviously isn't lazy--you think pinpoint arrangements come naturally?--the languor she encourages in her quiet cult is the kind of privilege that feels like an accomplishment to Nick Drake and Sylvia Plath fans. I say it's static; I say it gets a person nowhere. At least Norah Jones swings. A little. (Grade - B)