Krai (album)
Krai or Край is a full-length studio album by Russian-born New York singer-songwriter Olga Bell. It is her second solo album, and her first release on independent label One Little Indian Records/New Amsterdam Records. An exploration of themes of territory and identity, the album is sung entirely in Russian.
Title
The album's title, Krai — Край in the Cyrillic alphabet used to write Russian — can be translated variously as edge, frontier, limit, region, or wilderness. Each song on the album also contains the word Край/Krai in its title, because each one focuses on one of Russia's far-flung края (the plural of край) — administrative districts of Russia, yet another meaning of the word.
Recording and production
Krai began as a project Bell put together for the 2011 Ecstatic Music Festival, originally intended as a one-time performance. Following the show, however, she was awarded a grant by the American Composers Forum to create an album based on the initial project.
The songs on the album were written for six voices, four female and two male, but Bell herself performed all six parts. She also played jaw harp and keyboards on the album. Bell's compositions called for cello, electric bass, electric guitar,glockenspiel, kit drums, mallet percussion, and vibraphone players to collaborate with her. Some of the other musicians who contributed to the album were Andrea Lee (cello), Grey McMurray (electric guitar), Jason Nazary (kit drums and other percussion, plus glockenspiel and vibraphone), and Gunnar Olsen (kit drums and other percussion).
