Singer’s break comes
in a matter of Weeks

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

For all the corporate subversion it has endured, and the juvenile trappings often associated with it, the social networking Web site Myspace.com has its undeniable qualities.
Namely, it is organic, from the simplistic template each user begins with to the profiles that seamlessly link the likeminded, thus allowing them to leapfrog from page to page.
It was through this interface that Israeli singer-songwriter and record-store clerk Noa Babayof came to break her first record deal, traveling all the way to Philadelphia to do so.
The story of how that album — From a Window to a Wall — came to be seems, in a way, to threaten any kind of myth or legend surrounding Babayof, whose music is steeped in a peculiar and ancient beauty that would seem to transcend modern life altogether. But with just one listen, it becomes clear that her music is indeed something timeless, something that exists beyond our efforts to classify, categorize, and mystify.
For Babayof, her break came on an afternoon in January when she turned to the web of pages on MySpace, searching for new music and inspiration.
"In the very end of this afternoon in which I was searching for good music, right in the very last second, I got to Hexham Head studio," Babayof recalled last Wednesday while preparing to embark on her first East Coast tour.
That’s Hexham Head as in Espers member Greg Weeks’ basement studio in Philly — a facility decked out in 1970s-era analog recording equipment.
It’s where Weeks has been busy recording for artists ranging from Brooklyn’s Silver Summit to locals like Fern Knight and California’s Mountain Home. Of late, those names have been appearing on Language of Stone, a Drag City-distributed label that Weeks launched last fall with his wife Jessica.
But Babayof, typing on her computer in Israel, wasn’t aware of that just yet. She was, however, quite aware of the Espers, even citing them as one of her favorite modern bands.
"I hadn’t even read a word, there wasn’t any music on the page, and I didn’t even have any idea who it belonged to," Babayof said of the Hexham Head MySpace profile. Still, she requested Hexham as a "friend."
A few days later she got a message from Weeks, who lauded the demos Babayof had posted on her page. He said it would be his pleasure, if she ever was in the United States, to produce an album for her.
For Babayof, the message was received with pleasant shock. After some research and asking Weeks directly, she realized she was talking with one of the core creative minds behind Espers — a band well-received the world over and often credited with being a strong element in the current rebirth of psych-folk.
"I was starting to have my album going without having the right guy to direct the entire creative process," Babayof said of her work just before talking with Weeks. "I was really wanting somebody who knows and loves all of my influences, and coming from folk and psychedelic stuff . . . it was ideal for me to find somebody who actually managed to combine the sixties spirit with the spirit of nowadays. It was like the perfect match for me."
Two months after she first spoke with Weeks, she was on a plane to Philadelphia.
Babayof will tell you how humbled she was to be working on her debut album with some of her most-revered modern musicians, and to have secured a deal with her favorite label. But just listening to her voice will tell you it was not luck alone that brought her to the recording studio.
"The demo that sold me on Noa was Them That Are Writing The Songs," says Weeks. "That a cappella showed a depth of vision and talent that is far less than common in today’s world of faux soul singers. Noa’s song approach and vocal texture was fresh and exciting to me, part of a continuum of song that had been neglected over past decades."
That song, still in it’s a cappella form, appears as the last track on From a Window to a Wall.
It is, Babayof says, a song about her growth as a songwriter and musician, and as a human. The theme of growth and change is, indeed, prevalent on the album — a 12-track masterpiece loaded with a kind of haunting beauty that is sure to make it a classic for many.
Songs like Indian Queen, penned when the 26-year-old Babayof was just 19, contain a seductive gravity championed by Nico, the airy splendor of Vashti Bunyan, and the masterful phrasing and lyricism of Leonard Cohen. The elixir, in short, is stupefying.
Recording the album in just a two-week span, Weeks managed to draw out the most stunning qualities of Babayof’s work through sublime orchestration and luxuriant string arrangements.
But when Babaylof, who moved to Fishtown last month, appears for a live show at the First Unitarian Church, she will be playing solo with her guitar — just as she has at most of her gigs in Israel. ••

Check it out . . .
Who: Noa Babayof
What: A stunning Israeli songstress and the latest artist on Philly’s Language of Stone label.
When: Tuesday, July 15, at 8 p.m.
Where: The First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. Tickets are $10.