"Not Going Anywhere is a delicate jewel..." - Cosmopolitan (France)

After recording two successful CDs in France and co-writing the bulk of legendary French singer Henri Salvador’s 2000 hit album Room with a View, the singer-songwriter KEREN ANN makes her auspicious U.S. premiere with NOT GOING ANYWHERE. The CD is a sumptuous acoustic pop album of 11 finely crafted, lyrical gems. It marks Keren Ann’s debut singing a full package of songs in English.

With a whispery, delicate—almost fragile—voice that is as soothing, cool and refreshing as ice water on a humid summer day, Keren Ann delivers indelible songs that range from sober to sprightly. The poetry of the lyrics is strong throughout, and thematically there are equal measures of sweetness, wistfulness and intrigue. The album features a stark instrumental backdrop (a well-arranged sprinkling of strings and winds) that complements her unadorned, folk-leaning acoustic guitar and keyboard performances. Instead of the electronica colors and textures of her earlier outings, Keren Ann sticks to the basics here. As her French biographer Frédéric Lorge puts it, her sound is “stripped down, but not fleshless, since her voice has what it takes to conquer space.”

Keren Ann’s first two CDs, 2000’s La Biographie de Luka Philipsen and 2002’s La Disparition (The Disappearance), were collections of originals sung in French. The ethereal Not Going Anywhere finds her exploring the themes of love and disappearance in English. “I like to write songs in both languages,” she says, “Actually, I didn’t plan to release this album. It was just something I had to do for myself, to document the songs. But once I recorded it, I asked my label in France for a budget to finish it up.” Released in France in November 2003, Not Going Anywhere quickly became a hit. “It was nicely welcomed,” says Keren Ann, whose full name is Keren Ann Zeidel.

Born in Caesaria, a small town in Israel not far from Tel-Aviv, Keren Ann is the daughter of a Javanese-Dutch mother and Russian-Israeli father. She says, “They got married and together they listened to French songs.” After moving back and forth between Israel and the Netherlands, her family finally settled in France. “When we moved to Paris, I was 11, and I felt very happy to be living in the same city where Françoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg wrote songs.” Keren Ann has also been influenced by John Lennon, Chet Baker, Nick Drake & Suzanne Vega.

Keren Ann began playing guitar at age 9, but didn’t really sink into its song possibilities until after she moved to France. “My French got better the same day I learned how to play ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ on my guitar,” she says. “But the songs I was trying to write only took the [real] shape of songs years later.”

In 1998, Keren Ann began collaborating with songwriter Benjamin Biolay, and together they not only wrote the songs for her first album but also penned tunes for the 83-year-old Salvador’s comeback album. It was Room with a View that hipped the French public to Keren Ann’s considerable singer/songwriter talents. In 2001 she was nominated in the Best Female Newcomer category for the Victoires de la Musique (the annual French equilvalent of the Grammy Awards), where Salvador won two awards for best album and best talent that year. The next two years she was also nominated for best female artist.

After her success in France, she decided to shop around the album in the U.S. “A friend of mine knows that I used to go to New York City to write,” she says. “It’s just the other side of the sea, he said, so why not go there and visit some indie labels.”

She made the trip, but first stopped by the EMI Music office. “I went to Blue Note because I knew they had released Henri Salvador’s album in the U.S. and because I like their catalog.” Impressed by Not Going Anywhere, Blue Note decided to issue the disc on its Metro Blue imprint.

Not Going Anywhere opens with the catchy, pensive title number. “People try to convince me that this is a sad song, but it’s not.” This tune is followed by the wistful, trumpet-graced “Polly.” “Polly is one of my characters,” says Keren Ann. “She appeared in the short stories I wrote when I was a teenager, so I put her into this song.”

Keren Ann delivers the bright but sober, guitar fingerpicked “Road Bin,” the mysteriously splendored “End of May” and a gentle rocker, “Sailor & Widow,” about a widow who “kills all the people she loves.” The songwriter laughs. “Of course, that woman doesn’t really exist, but the song is fun to sing.”

The eleven songs on Not Going Anywhere add up to a moving and mysterious listening experience that introduces an important new talent.

While Keren Ann is based in France and spends considerable time in Brussels and Iceland, she will be making her presence known in the U.S. when she sets up a summer residency in New York City at The Sidewalk Café.