KEREN ANN: In Nomad’s Land

The multilingual, internationally renowned singer/songwriter/producer Keren Ann, who’s on the verge of releasing her fifth album, Keren Ann (and her third on the respected Blue Note), is probably one of the last artists you’d expect would admit to an addiction to American prime-time TV. But it turns out the Steven Reich-loving chanteuse is as passionate about melodrama as she is of esoterica.

The multilingual, internationally renowned singer/songwriter/producer Keren Ann, who’s on the verge of releasing her fifth album, Keren Ann (and her third on the respected Blue Note), is probably one of the last artists you’d expect would admit to an addiction to American prime-time TV. But it turns out the Steven Reich-loving chanteuse is as passionate about melodrama as she is of esoterica.

We speak by phone, and despite the fact that English is not her first language, Keren Ann Zeidel is eloquent, choosing her words carefully, with a cute accent and a unique phrasing that feels like she’s painting with her words. Having produced all of her own albums, she’s passionate about sonics and talks a lot about control in the studio. “On this [album] I made a choice of mixing ingredients that I had not in the past, like the choir along with darker elements…an old piano and drums…contrasting elements, like very low-frequency recordings along with very pure-sounding instruments, like flutes.”

Keren Ann writes in both English and French, a decision influenced not only by geography but by the story she’s telling. “Writing in French,” she explains, “it’s a language that permits you to be more dramatic and old, but sometimes I get fed up with it and go back to English, where it has to be just as it is-straight, raw…you can’t disguise things as much.”

Born in Israel, the 33-year-old divides her time between New York, Paris and, recently, her homeland. And she benefits from a balance of the three. “New York-I come in and I need its energy. I also have an on/off romance with Paris. Yet I was born in Israel, and I’ve been going back there more and more. I think the reason is because, there, I live in the country, and we decided that we wanted to be surrounded by trees …”

(When I ask about the mysterious “we,” methinks the lady doth protest, for she is polite but illusive: “Oh, sorry, it’s the person who shares my life…”)

Considering her nomadic existence, it’s no surprise that this latest album speaks of the wayfarer. “The writing goes more with my life as a sailor,” she says, “of moving from one place to another. As a musician, you always find yourself on a hard ship, tempted to go on but wanting to go home; yet the music holds you there. On this record I worked with this idea that as musicians, we’re all a little bit [like] sailors.”

While Keren Ann’s songs may feel personal, she points out that she tends to filter other people’s stories through her own emotional sieve. “For instance, for ‘It’s All a Lie,’ I was told about a woman who was a poet and artist, and she died all on her own in New York. At the same time, I was reading a story about a tightrope walker, and the fears of the tight-rope walker really reminded me of the fears you have when you walk onstage. I was completely obsessed with this piano woman…she was absolutely talented but drove herself to loneliness. Both of the stories collided and became one story-and that’s the song.”

Musically, Keren Ann is inspired both by her peers and her forebears. When I ask what she’s listening to these days, she says, without irony, “Philip Glass, Steven Reich.” Then adds, “And people from my generation, like Dayna Kurtz or Joseph Arthur.” Somewhat of a traditionalist, she’s often surprised by her response to newer artists.  “Sometimes they can make me cry with their songs. That’s pretty rare, because I usually listen to old stuff…I’m a big Dylan fan, and Bruce Springsteen, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday, Lee Hazlewood…but when I have emotions that are new, something that moves me, when it’s by artists of today that’s even greater.”

Our conversation is dominated by talk of music. So when I ask Keren Ann what she does for fun, she dispels my misbegotten theory that she probably goes to the opera: “Well, when I have time, I like to watch TV-not every week, though. I like to wait ‘til it’s out on DVD and watch it all at once, like 24 and West Wing. And Lost…it’s fantastic!”

And with that, the fantastique Keren Ann becomes un peu more ordinaire.