Rasputina is an American rock band based in New York City, known for an unconventional music style, as well as a 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.[3]
After working first with Columbia and then Instinct Records to produce their first four albums and first four EPs, the band then went on to produce all their subsequent work through Melora Creager's own record label, Filthy Bonnet Recording Co.,[17] starting with their live album A Radical Recital in 2005,[18] and later often selling music at their live shows or through the band's website directly, with no label affiliation, beginning with The Willow Tree Triptych in 2009. These off-label releases have generally been very limited runs, often with only around 100 copies being made available.[19][20]
In summer 2010, a documentary was made about Rasputina called Under the Corset by Dawn Miceli.[21] 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.[22]
Rasputina released Unknown on April 10, 2015.[23] 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.[24] 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.[25][26]
On June 26, 2015, Rasputina released a compilation of demo recordings from 1991 to 1997 titled "Magnetic Strip" and was only available by digital download on the band's website.[27]
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.[28]
In July 2017, Melora Creager announced a new album, The Feel-Good Hits of 1817. In her email newsletter, she stated that the album would be vinyl-only, and limited in quantity.[29]
The album None but the Lonely Heart was released through the band's website in 2018. The album is a collection of piano covers performed by Creager, including songs by Patti Smith, Duke Ellington, The Smiths, and Carl Sandburg. The title is taken from the Tchaikovsky song of the same name, which also serves as the first track on the album.[30]
In 2019, the album Skin is Living Leather was released on the band's website. It features nine songs, three of which are covers, five new songs written by Creager, and one which was co-written with Creager's daughter Ivy.[31]
"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.
"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.[17] 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 Kennedylobotomized 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.
In 2006, Melora released a solo album, Perplexions, through Filthy Bonnet Recording Co. with then Rasputina bandmate Jonathon Tebeest on piano.[35]
Luis Mojica, former pianist and beat-boxer in the band, released a studio album, "Wholesome", with Melora Creager of Rasputina on cello and Brian Viglione of The Dresden Dolls on drums.[36][37][38]
