Live Review: Keren Ann

Live Review: Keren Ann

Moody and melodic, a true chanteuse enchants: Aidin Vaziri | It's impossible to understand Keren Ann without a foldout map of the world, lots of hyphens and taking a deep breath. She's an Indonesian-Dutch- Israeli-Russian singer-songwriter who divides her time between New York and Paris and plays acoustic songs that evoke Nico and Norah Jones, without sounding close to either. She's a French chanteuse in the classic Françoise Hardy and Claudine Longet mold, complete with precisely cut bangs and a two-packs-a-day whisper. And if she hadn't torn several ligaments in her left thumb during a drunken night out while recording her fourth album, "Nolita," the songs would have never been drenched in electronic effects and would have made it truly sound like she landed here straight from 1967. In an old-world jazz club setting such as Cafe Du Nord, where she played with like-minded Argentine singer Juana Molina on Thursday, the decades seemed to melt away all the same. Backed only by guitar player Jack Petrocelli, her set wasn't so much about words and melodies as it was atmosphere. When getting swept up in the bittersweet, blue-moon mood of her songs, it was hard not to feel transported to the small Montmarte flat where she did most of her recording, with the faint smell of Gitanes and Pernod in the air.