From Russia with love and a playful attitude

Love and death, art and immortality, and a freewheeling, often lighthearted approach to such serious matter, though with a mordant edge.

Those thematic threads, even without hearing the vestige of an accent in Regina Spektor’s voice at the Hotel Cafe on Wednesday, would have been enough to expose her Russian roots. There were times, though, when the 24-year-old (who indeed lived in Moscow until her family moved to New York when she was 10) seemed from her own planet -- in an always-engaging way.

The solo set was marked by spontaneity but anchored by solid artistry and depth and her commanding if idiosyncratic singing and accomplished piano playing.

Comparisons to Fiona Apple and Tori Amos that have stemmed from her independent debut album, “Soviet Kitsch,” and a tour opening for the Strokes last year are not unreasonable. But where Apple and Amos are known for guardedness, Spektor this night was disarmingly loose and even fun.

Like Apple and Amos, though, she clearly sets her own agenda. She played only two songs from her album, which will soon be rereleased by Sire Records, concentrating instead on new material. Relishing playfulness both in words and music, the first song was a poetic flight of fancy in which she’s visited by the ghost of Ezra Pound. A later one, for which she switched to electric guitar, started with the notion of bobbing for apples in Somalia and centered on the image of “someone next door [making love] to one of my songs,” with her seeming both petulant and proud.

Song after song, ideas were floated, explored thoroughly and then turned on their heads with seeming effortlessness. And for all her sense of self- and artistic control, there were very human bobbles and asides that kept Spektor (and the audience) totally in the moment. It’s the kind of combination that gives rise to great expectations.