HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF – HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF

Don’t listen to this one driving home from a long late-night shift. It contains many tales of woe, and its very slow. Hurray for the Riff Raff  is essentially 23-year-old New Orleans’ folk singer songwriter Alynda Lee Segarra.  A Bronx teen runaway-turn-vagabond. Her past has been quite colourful and this album is quite dark. Alynda Lee Segarra doesn’t sing the blues, Hurray for the Riff Raff is so sad and dark she actually sings the blacks. Common themes are of death, depression and unrequited love. I think even Sylvia Plath would tell her to cheer up, just a little. It’s not exactly the kind of tunes you would put on in the background at a dinner party. Maybe if you were going through a break-up and wanted to wallow in your grief. Perhaps if you listened long enough you would realise things aren’t that bad. Using old-world instrumentation including banjos, fiddles, accordion and even suitcase drums HFTRR follows the current neu-folk trend. If you wallow long enough, there are shades of light to be found; or if you’re trying to be counter-culture cool.

**1/2