From Russia with love

Page 2 of 2 -- There's only a trace of an accent in Spektor's voice. Born in Moscow, she immigrated to the Bronx at age 9, mainly for religious reasons.

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''It's very anti-Semitic," Spektor says. ''Every Jewish person's passport is marked, and as soon as Gorbachev said we could apply for visas to go to Israel or America my parents said 'No way our kid is going to grow up in this.' "

Her mother taught music history; her father was a violinist as well as a photographer, but when the Spektors crossed the ocean they had to leave their piano behind; it was considered Soviet property. Regina, who'd studied since she was 6, practiced for a year on windowsills and tabletops. She discovered an out-of-tune upright in the local synagogue.

Thanks to a fortuitous meeting on a subway train, Spektor began taking lessons from Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, while attending yeshiva. Spektor was so focused on perfecting her Chopin that the idea of writing a song didn't occur to her until her senior year, but then the floodgates opened.

While at college at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music, Spektor started playing local gigs. She sold a homemade CD at coffeehouses and, after moving back to New York City, began frequenting open-mike events while working day jobs as a medical secretary and as an assistant to a private investigator. As her songs became ''weirder and darker" and as Spektor became more serious about a life in music, she moved back in with her parents to save money, and became a fixture on the anti-folk scene, supporting such artists as David Poe, Ed Harcourt, and the Dismemberment Plan. She made another CD, called ''Songs."

Then she met Raphael, who financed her album because ''we had a good feeling something would happen."

He hired a string section and the punk band Kill Kenada to play on ''Soviet Kitsch" -- a clue to the idiosyncratic nature of this collection, which includes such titles as ''Ode to Divorce," ''Carbon Monoxide," and ''Chemo Limo." Track seven, ''* * *," is a whispered exchange between the artist and her brother. Her characters are so vividly drawn that when he heard ''Chemo Limo," Raphael didn't doubt that Spektor had four children and cancer.

His influence extended past the making of the album. On a lark, late one night during sessions for the Strokes sophomore CD ''Room on Fire," Raphael played one of Spektor's songs for the band's singer and songwriter, Julian Casablancas. Casablancas asked for a CD to take home that night. The next morning he came into the studio, put his arms around Raphael, and sang one of her songs into his ear. Casablancas invited Spektor to join the band in the studio for ''Modern Girls & Old Fashioned Men," a B-side to the ''Reptilia" single, and -- despite the rather glaring aesthetic differences -- the Strokes took Spektor out as opening act on their North American tour. That's when the labels came calling.

''It may not be logical," Spektor says of her musical love match with the swaggering modern rock band. ''But their music was immediate and beautiful to me. Julian was drawn to mine. A classical violinist can walk into a jazz show and adore it. Still, I don't know what's to come for me. It's a hits world and sometimes smaller things can get lost in the bigger picture. But for every million people that follow the hit song, there are fifty people who want music that will stay with them through their life."

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com.

Regina Spektor performs tonight at the Paradise Lounge. Doors at 9; tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Call 617-562-8814 or visit www.thedise.com