Marc Almond loves Moscow. Moscow loves Almond
Marc Almond remembers his first trip to Russia. How could he not? The Soviet Union was approaching its demise; there was no food, no restaurants. “Nothing was working. Every day was drudgery. But I loved it. I felt really at home,” says the singer who, from the 1981 success of his deathless electro-pop No 1, Tainted Love, had lived a glorious, decadent Eighties popstar life.
Now, almost 20 years later, Almond is paying further tribute with an album recorded in Moscow over two years with the producer and arranger Alexei Fedorov and self-financed by gigs for “oligarchs and generals”. The working title is Varieté, “or Northern Variety”
In the spirit of his 1989 album, Jacques, hymning the praises of Brel, Orpheus in Exile is a loving tribute to the songs of Vadim Kozin (1903-94), the tenor known variously as Stalin’s favourite singer, the chanteur of the labour camps and the “Russian Orpheus”.
This Romance tradition is “defined in Russia as being intimate songs that touch the soul”, Almond says.
Moscow loves Almond...
