Semkina’s haunting and eclectic second solo album
*****
Singer songwriter Marjana Semkina is a member of the prog rock group iamthemorning with her Russian-born compatriot the pianist Gleb Kolyadin, both of whom are now resident in the UK. The duo have released several records, the most recent being The Bell (2019) and the EP Counting The Ghosts (2020). More recently, Semkina has pursued a parallel solo career, releasing her first solo LP, Sleepwalking in 2020 and her EP Disillusioned in 2021. Earlier this year she sang on the Moonflower EP with Zora Cock of Blackbriar, and she has now released SIRIN, her second solo album.
The album takes its title from Sirin, a creature from Slavic mythology, with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. Semkina describes the bird as,
“… a harbinger of bad luck and death… if you meet the Sirin bird it’s believed you will lose a battle or a big catastrophe will happen... Sirin cries and mourns for humankind, and nothing can be more appropriate in this day and age.”
Semkina feels that the ‘bad luck and death’ predicted by Sirin has already happened, in particular the War in Ukraine. Her previous songs have been embedded in folklore, the imagination and literature, with a strong preference for the 19th century. On X (Twitter) she amusingly describes herself as ‘dead Victorian girl.’ But her resistance to the war prompted her to become more political. She was on her way to an anti-war protest in Trafalgar Square when she wrote the lyrics to the opening song, ‘We are the Ocean’, with the poignant final chorus, ‘Bring them home’, a plea to bring the soldiers back home from war. The song also includes the lines,
Louder our voices will ring
Through the walls of this prison
And I sing louder
The louder we sing
The harder they'll fall
These words gained further resonance when Gleb Kolyadin was arrested and imprisoned in Thailand while on tour as a session musician with the Russian dissident rock band Bi-2, facing deportation to Russia where the band could have been persecuted for anti-war sentiments. Semkina highlighted the story via social media and an online petition. Kolyadin was released after a week in prison and returned to England via Israel. A few days after his release, the duo performed an emotional comeback show at Piano Smithfield in London.
As well as war, Semkina embraces other dark themes on the album, but in a rather unexpected way. For instance, the ninth song, ‘Swan Song’ sounds like a deeply-felt love ballad, with a stirring chorus and rich, yearning strings. But the lyrics are, in Semkina’s words, a ‘meditation on death’, and what may happen after death, ‘Soul is taking off, but where will it land?’ In the July issue of Prog, Semkina told Jeremy Allen that she enjoys writing songs like the eighth track ‘The Storm’ which sound happy but are ‘anything but.’ One of the major influences in writing in this style is Steven Wilson, who she says,
“… writes in a similar manner in some of his songs, like ‘Drown With Me‘, which is an exceptionally happy-sounding song about somebody who’s drowning.”
The album also features a sequence of songs about the end a bad relationship, starting with the fourth track, Pygmalion. The dedication on the YouTube video reads,
This is for the one that tried to bury me, but instead dug his own grave.
It’s a haunting song, reminiscent of the way Steven Wilson’s songs for Porcupine Tree often start quietly and move towards a climax, like a short story or a film. It also demonstrates the full dynamic and emotional range of Semkina’s remarkable voice, from soft, almost whispered at the start to anguished, powerful bitterness at the end, where Semkina almost shouts the final words ‘we/Will be together to the end’, before the track brutally cuts off. The song begins with lovely, ambivalent chords and a simple melody, before a brief electronic blast that leads to the deeply bitter chorus.
The song adapts the myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor who fell in love with a life-size statue he made of a woman, brought to life by Aphrodite the goddess of love. Semkina’s lyrics suggest that the woman created in the myth is a perfect, passive object, created by a man entirely for his own pleasure, made up of all the elements that appeal to him, including obedience and only speaking when spoken to. The lines ‘And stories will be told/Of my exceptional betrothed’ are deeply bitter and sarcastic. The depth of feeling is similar to Porcupine Tree’s ‘Hatesong’ (from the 2000 album Lightbulb Sun) which drips with vitriol,
This is a hate song just meant for you
I thought that I'd write it down while I still could
I hope when you hear this you'll want to sue
Wilson’s song is part of a collection of four or five tracks on Lightbulb Sun which he referred to as ‘divorce songs’, written after a bitter breakup.
The next song in Semkina’s bitter trio of songs is ‘Angel Street’, the title of the 1941 American version of the play Gas Light, written in 1938 by British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton, from which the term ‘gaslighting’ is derived. Semkina’s lyrics refer to the ‘mind games’ played by her Ex. Again, this a song which is attractive on the surface, beginning with gentle acoustic guitars and contemplative vocals, followed by a jaunty chorus in 3/4 (the dance rhythm in which waltzes are usually written) and a folky instrumental accompaniment. But don’t be deceived by the song’s pretty exterior – the lyrics are vicious,
All your words are empty shells
Nothing exonerates lies
There's not a shadow of truth in your eyes
Nothing saves you from yourself
The final track in this stunning sequence of ‘hatesongs’ is ‘Gone’. Again, the words are savage,
Your poison in my veins takes its toll
Your thorns piercing my soul
I'm fabric sewn with pain
All in vain
But there is beautiful music here, with undulating piano and brooding strings, and a sense of hope arising from the bitterness. Semkina’s tenderly fragile voice is gentler than on the other tracks in this sequence. The song ends on a note of optimism, ‘I’m not alone/I’m not.’
Although this a solo album, Semkina is joined by several collaborators, enhancing the record’s rich and varied sound world. Grigoriy Losenkov plays piano, bass and synths. Vlad Avy plays electric guitar, synths. Keli Guðjónsson (Agent Fresco) plays drums on most tracks. Charlie Cawood (Mediæval Bæbes, Knifeworld) provides multiple instruments, including exotic instruments such as bouzouki (Greek long-necked lute), hammered dulcimer (a favourite of Steven Wilson on some of the Porcupine Tree albums), zither, liuqin (Chinese mandolin) and guzheng (Chinese plucked zither). There’s also a string quartet – Margarita Chernyshevskaya and Petr Chepelev (violins), Julia Uliashcenkova (viola) and Julia Romashko (cello). Semkina is also joined by two guest vocalists Jim Grey (Caligula’s Horse) on the beguiling song ‘Anything but Sleep’ and Mick Moss (Antimatter) on the achingly gorgeous ‘Death and the Maiden’.
Semkina created this album without the support of a record label, raising tens of thousands of pounds for the project via crowd funding. She is an exceptional talent, as a singer and a songwriter, and a passionate promoter of her poetic and profound vision of the world through her music.
SIRIN is available to stream and to buy via Bandcamp. iamthemorning will be performing live at St Matthias’ Church, Stoke Newington on Friday 1st November 2024.
One Reply to “”