Orpheus In Exile ~ The Songs Of Vadim Kozin

They Say...

Review by Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Approaching the start of a fourth decade as a performer, Marc Almond continues to resist easy classification as this kind of artist or that; his willingness to explore any number of styles and facets of his muse remains one of his strongest qualities. In this regard, his Russian-themed work has loomed large in recent years, with many tours of the country resulting first in his striking Heart on Snow and some years later this, what is less a sequel than a full celebration of one of the performers and songwriters featured on the earlier collection, Vadim Kozin. As Almond explains in his thoughtful liner notes, Kozin's story is one of personal and artistic exaltation and tragedy, his smash success as a songwriter and performer in the '30s and '40s replaced by banishment to Siberia and silence due to accusations of homosexuality in a time when it was outlawed; though Kozin lived into the early '90s, when Almond first toured Russia and learned of his music, the two never met. Working with an ensemble led by arranger Alexei Fedorov, Almond self-consciously explores a more traditional style than he did on his previous single-artist tribute to Jacques Brel; as Almond notes, Kozin's work is barely known outside his home country where Brel's work had long established a strong reputation in the U.K. and elsewhere. The result is a wonderfully impressionistic album that in its audible warmth conjures up visions of moodily lit theaters and military revues, songs that in their immediacy almost beg to be sung along to. It's little surprise, Given their mutual ear for memorable melodies and turns of phrase, it's of little surprise that Almond found resonance in both Kozin's words and music, and his overall selection here covers both Kozin's originals and selections in his repertoire, and could almost be a parallel to many of Almond's long-established tropes and styles. Almond's voice retains its yearning passion, tinged a little more clearly with age perhaps but never without that ache that defines his style, and he easily moves from the boot-stomping wartime story of "Brave Boy" to the swirling elegance of "When Youth Becomes a Memory" with his trademark ease. One of the most entrancing numbers, "Autumn," benefits from Almond's almost jaunty delivery matched against an arrangement by Fedorov intentionally given a rough, crackling edge to suggest a long-lost vinyl pressing, while "Pearly Night" almost sparks with a much more modern edge thanks to the tinge of the guitars. The three most striking songs are among Kozin's most personal -- "Friendship," a carefully coded song of same-sex love, and the bookending "Boulevards of Magadan" and "Letter from Magadan" celebrating and ruing his city of residence for the last decades of his life, a modern equivalent to Ovid's poetic misery on the Black Sea far from Rome. Almond and Fedorov give their all, with the last song providing a perfect send-off for the album and the project as a whole, Almond noting via Kozin that it all became "history, my friends." If so, Almond's done a master's work in bringing Kozin into a wider history.