Rasputina is an American, cello-driven band based in New York City, that is known for their unconventional and quirky music style, as well as their fascination with historical allegories and fashion, especially those pertaining to the Victorian era.
The group is fronted by cellist/vocalist Melora Creager, who writes the music and lyrics and creates art for the band's albums, singles, and website.
History
In 1989, Creager wrote a manifesto, and placed an ad in The Village Voice seeking women to form an electric cello choir. Julia Kent, then an editor at the Village Voice, was the first respondent. The original group of nine was whittled to three. They named themselves "Rasputina", after one of Creager's songs. The group performed frequently and became a local favorite in New York City.
On their second full-length album, How We Quit the Forest, Rasputina signed on Chris Vrenna (from Nine Inch Nails) as their drummer and producer. He also provided electronic drums and sound effects.
In summer 2010, a documentary was made about Rasputina called Under the Corset by Dawn Miceli. In January 2011 Melora Creager announced on The Dawn and Drew Show that Dawn Miceli would be playing the drums on the February 2011 tour.
Rasputina released Unknown on April 10, 2015. The record is a concept album that exhibits the band's frontwoman, Melora Creager's, trauma after her computer was hacked into. The album is only available on CD from the band's website so, as Melora states on the site "conceptually... anyone who purchases it is known to me." The entire album was recorded solo by Creager in three weeks.
The 2015 "Unknown" lineup is the first in the history of Rasputina to add piano and beat boxing, in place of traditional drums, by Luis Mojica.
On June 26th 2015 Rasputina released a compilation of demo recordings from 1991 - 1997 titled "Magnetic Strip" and is only available by digital download on the band's website.
In the fall of 2016, Polly Panic joined Rasputina as the second cellist. The first tour of the line up with Melora, Polly Panic as second cellist/backing vocalist, and Luis Mojica as keyboardist/beat boxer and backing vocalist.
"The Donner Party" discusses the Donner Party, a group of American pioneers traveling to California who encountered a series of mishaps and resorted to cannibalism. The track compares them to the colonial pilgrims.
"Howard Hughes" is about the eccentric billionaire aviator.
How We Quit the Forest
"Rose K." is about the matriarch of the Kennedy family, who had a stroke at age 94 and was cared for at the Kennedy Compound by private nurses and staff. Although Melora jokingly refers to this as her "Alzheimer's Song" on A Radical Recital, Rose was not known to have suffered from Alzheimer's disease. In concert, Melora also frequently introduces the song by referring to Rose's husband's decision to have her daughter Rosemary Kennedy lobotomized at the age of 23, to calm her alleged mood swings.
"Herb Girls of Birkenau" describes the victims of human experiments in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, from the point of view of a powerless witness.
"Diamond Mind" is a satire inspired by the music of a De Beers diamond commercial that uses music composed by Karl Jenkins, which he later used as a theme of the orchestral piece Palladio.
"Incident in a Medical Clinic" is about the disease Schistosomiasis (also known as Snail-fever).
"Child Soldier Rebellion" makes mention of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda's usage of children as soldiers.
"Oh Bring Back the Egg Unbroken" is about the Tangata manu competition of the inhabitants from Easter Island.
"We Stay Behind" is about the people who stayed behind in New Orleans during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. An article from the AP by Allen G. Breed exclaims, "I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," about watching the warehouses burn. "People are just not themselves."
In popular culture
The Dead Milkmen released a song titled "Melora Says", which is about some of the themes covered in Rasputina's music.
Songs
Transylvanian ConcubineThanks for the Ether · 1996 The Olde HeadBoardHow We Quit the Forest · 1998 Holocaust of GiantsSister Kinderhook · 2010
