Russian Red
Who is Russian Red?
Lourdes Hernández (Madrid, 1986), known artistically as Russian Red, is a Spanish indie folk singer-songwriter who writes and performs her own material. The stage name came about almost by chance, taken from a shade of red lipstick she used to wear. Her sound, close to that of artists like Feist, quickly made her one of the leading faces of the Spanish indie scene that emerged in the late 2000s.
Career
The project took shape after she met musician Brian Hunt, with whom she recorded a demo featuring tracks such as “Reason” and “Sadie” that racked up more than 70,000 plays on MySpace, an unusual feat at the time. That early buzz led to more than sixty concerts throughout 2007, including an appearance at the Primavera Sound festival, and drew the attention of critics.
In 2008 she released her debut album, “I Love Your Glasses,” produced by Fernando Vacas for the independent label Eureka. The record was hailed as one of the year’s revelations and earned her the “El Duende” award for most promising artist, as well as a Pop-Eye award for best debut album; by late 2009 it had gone gold in Spain. The tour that followed ran for more than two years across Spain and Latin America, with stops at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona and a closing show at Madrid’s Teatro Calderón in late December 2009.
In 2011 she signed with the major label Sony and released her second album, “Fuerteventura,” recorded in Glasgow with producer Tony Doogan, known for his work with Belle & Sebastian, Teenage Fanclub and Mogwai. The lead single, “I Hate You But I Love You,” confirmed her move toward a more elaborate sound, part of a generation of Spanish singer-songwriters — alongside names like Zahara and Alondra Bentley — that established Spanish-language indie as a movement in its own right.