Eliciting comparisons to Edith Piaf is no small feat for a performer. And yet Israeli chanteuse Efrat Gosh is doing it time and time again.
Maybe it’s the playful flirtatiousness of her performance that earns her the compliment, or the shamelessly romantic air that permeates her every refrain and high note. And her distinctively throaty croon and inventive vintage fashion sense certainly don’t get in the way.
Gosh herself loves Piaf, and draws both her distinctive style and her musical sensibilities from 1940s and 50s Piaf’s heyday – not to mention that of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. “I love this period of time,” she said in a video interview with Vogue Italia. “They were kind of rough but they had a lot of glamour.”
She could have been describing herself. Since being discovered as a backup singer back in 2002, the 29-year-old has made 3 albums, with music ranging from brazen to coy. Fully in character in one of the 7 videos she made for her love song “Ah ah ah ahava,” Gosh paints herself with red lipstick hearts as she croons about lo-o-o-ve with joyful abandon, making you fall in love, right there, with her.
– Temim Fruchter
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