Persephone's Bees

Angelina Moysov, vocals
Tom Ayres, guitar
Bart Davenport, bass
Paul Bertolino, drums

Angelina Moysov, the voice and songwriter of Persephone’s Bees, grew up in the multi-ethnic Caucasus region of Southern Russia. She attended music school and graduated with a major in choir conducting. Her formal education was enriched by the eclectic musical landscape of her hometown, ranging from Middle Eastern sounds of Armenian, Georgian, Greek and Turkish folk music, traditional Russian, Slavic and Gypsy tunes, to bootleg tapes of Pink Floyd, John Lennon, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Sex Pistols, Shocking Blue, Suzie Quatro and whatever else the pop culture-hungry Soviet youth could lay their hands on. In addition, the emergence of the Russian homegrown variety of rock music had a profound effect on the young Moysov.

Angelina came out to explore the West in 1993 with 50 bucks and a handful of Soviet army watches, sold to finance her grand entrance into the new world. She met Tom Ayres one night while he was playing guitar in a local dive in Monterey, California. They instantly clicked. Moysov explains: “I always believed in Divine Providence. Having the opportunity to work with Tom over the years is proof of my belief.”

Ayres, a musician who seamlessly traverses styles from country to hard-core punk, was born and raised in Monterey. “When Angelina presented me with her first song written in English, I knew exactly what I would be doing over the next few years.” The “next few years” led to Persephone’s Bees’ initial success as recipients of the San Francisco Bay Area Award (BAMMY) in the Best Pop Band category and their nomination to the California Music Awards for Best Debut Album, 8 songs they recorded at home.

Although the band never made a point of courting the music industry, by chance they caught the attention of producer Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Good Charlotte, Nickel Creek) at The Paradise Lounge in San Francisco. He started talking to the band about making a record together. Valentine had more than enough material to choose from when Moysov and Ayres laid out a collection in excess of 30 home demos.

Hardly straight forward and predictable in the musical sense, “Notes From The Underworld” is the band’s first major release, which will be out in early 2006 on Columbia Records. The album entertains the listener with its deceptively sweet melodies, sultry vocals, and almost cliché pop titles, such as “Way To Your Heart” and “Nice Day”. The band’s signature technique of contrasting melodic lines and harmonies with heavy guitar & psychedelic keyboard gives the music additional depth and sophistication with a dash of surrealism.

The inspiration for Moysov’s songs comes from the state of her own condition and environment. Some songs like “Home” and “Muzika Dlya Fil’ma” are reflections on the devastation of separation from family and friends, the collapse of familiar childhood values in her homeland, post Soviet chaos and vulgarization of Russian mass culture, the loss of identity, and nostalgia. “At times I feel like a gypsy”, Moysov says, “only content when I’m in between places”.

The two contrasting realities of the seductive pressure of material success and the longing for the past’s idealism pulls her in opposite directions, as found in “Climbing”, “Queen’s Night Out” and “Nice Day”.

At times Moysov escapes to the dreamy world of her own with songs like “City Of Love” and “Walk To The Moon”, a direct reference to the final passages of Bulgakov’s “Master And Marguarita”, a Russian cult classic novel with a surreal world of flying witches, diabolic metamorphosis, time – defying events of evangelical proportions, and triumph of boundless love and compassion.

Persephone’s Bees seem to cut across different demographics with the same ease and confidence as they cut cross styles. “We took every gig offered” says Angelina, “every opportunity to share these songs. Everyone heard something different, from Au Pairs to Blondie, The Pretenders to Yes”.

Getting ready to release “Notes From The Underworld”, Angelina is hopeful Persephone’s Bees won’t be categorized as this or that, garage, retro, punk or mainstream, but ideally a little bit of everything. “I hope that we attract fans of all kinds of music, because that’s what we like to play.”

Led by Russian singer/songwriter/keyboardist Angelina Moysov, Persephone's Bees (a name that comes from a poem by Russian poet Osip Mandelstam) had its beginnings soon after Moysov moved to the United States and met guitarist Tom Ayres in 1993. The two began collaborating, drawing from Moysov's childhood influences of Russian folk, Gypsy music, her brother's collection of British and American music, new wave, and underground Russian punk. After the duo went through several unsuccessful rhythm sections, they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1999. There they made a demo and used it to recruit bassist Bart Davenport and drummer Paul Bertolino.

Following City of Love, a self-produced LP, Persephone's Bees found themselves on bills with Cake and Jonathan Richman, while the title track was added to the soundtrack for the film Bewitched in 2005. Both Bertolino and Davenport had left the band temporarily to focus on other projects, but eventually rejoined in time for Persephone's Bees' full-length major-label debut record, Notes from the Underworld, released by Columbia Records in August 2006. ~ Kenyon Hopkin, All Music Guide