Style: Prog rock, chamber folk, chamber pop, post-rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Caspian, Kate Bush
Country: Russia (based out of United Kingdom)
Release date: 31 May 2024
In a musical career narrating mental illness (Lighthouse), dead victorian girls and premature burials (~), twisted fairytale retellings (The Bell), and death, mortality, and regret (Sleepwalking), one cannot help but recognize a consistent weaving of tragedy underpinning Marjana Semkina’s lyrics. Relocating to the United Kingdom in 2020, and with Semkina’s homeland Russia’s escalation of an ongoing conflict with Ukraine in February of 2022, she bravely stood against Russia, leading her to raise funds for victims of the war and participate in protests; this also prevents her from returning to St. Petersburg lest she be imprisoned. Then once she and her longtime bandmate in Iamthemorning, Gleb Kolyadin, had comfortably moved to London, Kolyadin was arrested in Thailand under threat of deportation back to Russia. Unsurprisingly then, Semkina’s second solo LP’s lyrics have a noticeable shift from the dark fairytales of past albums with Iamthemorning to darker realities. She won’t be complicit with the state of the world.
The sirin, a harbinger of bad luck in Slavic mythology, mourns for humankind, and the grief of the titular creature seeps through the album like oil out of Norilsk. Utilizing post-rock’s crescendos in miniature packages, Sirin’s compositions follow a predictable—though repeatedly successful—pattern from morose acoustic section with her distinct, airy vocals to powerful, orchestrated climaxes. She sings more assuredly than ever before; her breathy falsettos are no longer meek, and her near-belting has a rich timbre—I don’t know that ~ era Semkina could have sung like she does on “Pygmalion,” her once dainty and shy voice having only gotten stronger without losing any of her unique style.
On a smaller scale, Sirin is also Semkina’s highest compositional achievement. Her orchestration and instrumental ornamentation have triply increased in complexity—with a full string quartet, prog rock band, and even some extras like glockenspiel and hammered dulcimer. Yet as always for a Semkina project, Sirin rarely feels dense. Except for in the most extreme of climaxes on the album like “Death and the Maiden” or “Lost But at Peace,” Semkina’s voice blooms above all like a colorful fairy princess in a gloomy forest (unless, of course, the instrumentation takes a lead, like the isolated cello on “Swan Song” or the tense, glimmering post-rock tremolos of “Angel Street”). In those more explosive moments of action, Semkina deftly writes deceptively complex chamber folk, similar to Musk Ox in intensity and beauty, produced perfectly, as well. The strings sound exactingly human with the friction of the bows, the bass parts tie in with their delicate power, and the cheeky use of synths in a folk project act as a soundscape for pensive reflection, especially on finale “This Silence This Dreaming” which extinguishes slowly like the final orange coughs of an ember.
The group of musicians Semkina has assembled to complete Sirin are nothing short of phenomenal, complimenting Semkina’s own vocal and guitar talents. Starting on opener “We Are the Ocean,” we’re treated with the dopamine-inducing guitar solo of Liam McLaughlin (Sithu Aye)—much more technical and intricate than I imagined a Marjana Semkina album to feature but wonderfully fitting nonetheless. Perhaps the strongest tracks on the album are “Anything But Sleep” and “Death and the Maiden,” featuring Jim Grey (Caligula’s Horse) and Mick Moss (Antimatter), respectively. The two men have drastically different voices, but each fit in with Semkina’s, highlighting different aspects of her voice. Grey’s dreamy falsetto has a similar timbre as Semkina’s typical breathiness but at a lower range, and the two gracefully lead the song through its dark fantasy. Mick Moss, on the other hand, sounds like Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) with a fuller, lower voice, and his powerful leads on “Death and the Maiden” are an emotional highlight of Sirin, exchanging the vocal climax for an instrumental back-half of the track which also features one of the strongest emotional moments of the album.
Unable to return home, Semkina crafts an album stunning in its emotional depth, reflecting on personal and worldwide tragedy. There are glimmers of hope as a byproduct of how gorgeous many of the arrangements are, but by the final notes of “This Silence This Dreaming” and the silence after, little optimism remains. Semkina has created a harrowing album; you can hear the sirin’s cry echoing.
Recommended tracks: We Are the Ocean, Anything But Sleep, Death and the Maiden
You may also like: Iamthemorning, Gleb Kolyadin, Musk Ox
Final verdict: 9/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Label: independent
Marjana Semkina is:
– Marjana Semkina – vocals, guitar
– Grigoriy Losenkov – piano, bass guitar, synths, drum programming
– Vlad Avy – electric guitar, synths, drum programming
– Keli Guðjónsson – drums
– Charlie Cawood – acoustic guitar, bouzouki, glockenspiel, hammered dulcimer, luiqin, guzheng
– Liam McLaughlin – electric guitar
– Margarita Chernyshevskaya – 1st Violin
– Petr Chepelev – 2nd Violin
– Julia Uliashcenkova – Viola
– Julia Romashko – Cello
– Jim Grey – vocals on Anything But Sleep
– Mick Moss – vocals on Death and the Maiden
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