En concert au Days Off Festival le 5 juillet 2013 - Salle Pleyel

Rachel Zeffira’s debut solo album 'The Deserters' is both beautiful and beguiling - a gauzy, rapturous tour de force that mines both Zeffira’s classical training as well as the pop sensibilities she displayed as one half of Cat’s Eyes. It might recall at times the baroque pop of John Cale and the hazy experimentation of My Bloody Valentine, but at heart it’s a largely unclassifiable record that stands defiantly alone and apart from its peers.
The album grew from her first solo recordings – a wondrous cover of My Bloody Valentine’s ‘To Here Knows When’ and the evocative ‘Waiting For Sylvia’ – which she sung, played and orchestrated in the summer of 2011. Spurred on by the positive results – the music was greeted enthusiastically by everyone from Pitchfork to NME - she began to piece together songs for 'The Deserters' when time allowed. The process was unusual because the writing often took place in unexpected locations such as local churches.

If that ambience permeates ‘The Deserters’ in a subtle way, the most striking sonic component of the record are the orchestrations – a central feature of what elevates Zeffira’s music into the extraordinary. Having drawn great acclaim for her multi-instrumentalism and orchestration on the debut Cat’s Eyes album, the breadth and ambition of what she’s achieved on her solo album are perhaps even more strikingly impressive. Once again, the orchestra was recorded at London’s legendary Abbey Road, and once again they threatened to bankrupt Zeffira.

"I spend my savings there over and over again. I never learn," she laughs. “I always score everything out and conduct to try to save some money, then end up blowing it all on extra musicians.” 
Zeffira’s confidence comes from a life spent accumulating the knowledge and skill that’s evident throughout her solo album. Half-Italian and half-Irish, she grew up in rural Canada in a small and isolated industrial town that she describes as "completely cut-off from the rest of the world." Encouraged by her European family, Zeffira discovered a natural aptitude for the piano and violin at a young age. Her friends at school listened to anything but classical music, providing her with a broad foundation of musical knowledge which she continues to draw on in her work. "I was lucky because my parents made me take piano lessons," she says, "but I didn't really appreciate it until I'd made the choice to do it on my own."

When Zeffira was 17, she attempted to travel to London to study, but after being accidentally deported and losing her place, she ended up faking a CV, pretending she was 26 and getting a job as a French supply teacher at a comprehensive school in Dagenham (“Hell on earth,” she recalls succinctly).
“I found myself within surroundings that were completely alien to me. I wasn’t singing or doing anything creative – and I was trying to find a way back to music”. 

Zeffira was driven to move to Verona, Italy where for the first time in her life, she really began to enjoy the fruits of her musical training - playing cathedral organ and oboe and being invited to The Vatican to sing for Pope John Paul II.  She later used her Vatican contacts to arrange for Cat's Eyes to play their first memorable concert at a Vatican mass.

Afterwards Zeffira moved back to London, and in 2008 by chance she met Faris Badwan. The pair hit it off and quickly began exchanging musical ideas and demos. An early Phil Spector-inspired recording of Rachel's became the seed from which the duo's debut album sprung.
"I'm not sure that Cat's Eyes changed my approach to music," Rachel says, "but it did give me the freedom to manifest what I wanted to do. In the classical world I never really followed the rules, but Cat's Eyes actually let me put that into practice."

The Cat’s Eyes album was a critical triumph and garnered widespread acclaim, making many end of year Album Of 2011 lists. It gave Zeffira confidence to continue exploring her own ideas, totally detached from the current musical climate.

"I wanted something that I wouldn't be embarrassed about 5 or 10 years from now," she says. "I wanted it to last, to be genuine, not trendy. It had to be true, the sounds, the words, the whole thing."
Likewise, Rachel prefers not to tie her songs to one place and time.

“I keep the lyrics obscure for a reason,” she says. “I always think it ruins a song when you explain what it’s about.”

In ‘The Deserters’, lyrical themes of old friends, half-remembered letters and once-known stories peep through the layers of reverb and orchestration.

The precision and orchestration of 'The Deserters' could not have come from an artist without Zeffira's extensive musical training, but its sound is anything but that of cold formalism. Rather, the record has an elliptical warmth of an album you know will be a lifelong friend.

"I can't erase my classical past," says Zeffira. "My favourite piece of music of all time is 'The Swan' by Saint-Saëns. I've heard it millions of times, but I'll still stop what I'm doing to listen to it until the end."

In an age where we rarely watch a YouTube video without clicking out of the tab, Rachel Zeffira's album 'The Deserters' is that rare thing: a record that stops you in your tracks and forces you to pay attention. It’s another astonishing achievement by an increasingly remarkable artist.