It seems like an odd choice for an artist to release a sophomore album of cover material, especially someone looking to build on some debut-album buzz. But that’s what Alina Simone decided to do with her new one, Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware, a nine-song record of songs by Soviet-era songwriter Yanka Dyagileva.

For Simone, though, it’s not too much of a stretch. She was born in the Ukraine, then spent most of her youth in Massachusetts, graduating from art school in Boston before heading to Austin where she spent some time busking. She eventually graduated to clubs and bars in New York, releasing her debut album, Placelessness, last year. Her summer tour will bring her to Columbus Wednesday for a free show at Surly Girl with the Black Swans’ Jerry DeCicca.

Simone has also spent a lot of time in Siberia, where she first became acquainted with the music of Dyagileva, a folk singer with punk leanings (drawn from peer Egor Letov) who reached cult status in Russia only after her supposed suicide in 1991 at the age of 24. (Think Americans’ fascination with similarly tortured soul Nick Drake, but probably on a larger scale.)

Last year, the Durham Arts Council in North Carolina awarded Simone a grant to record some of Dyagileva’s tunes. Because of Simone’s history, Placelessness had a vaguely Russian feel, but this is taken to the obvious extreme on Beware, as everything is sung entirely in Russian. There’s also a spontaneous, somewhat lo-fi vibe on the album as Simone and her producer attempted to capture a feeling similar to Dyagileva’s original tapes.

Out of mental laziness and a previous unfamiliarity with Dyagileva, I admit I wasn’t initially excited about listening repeatedly to a Russian album. But to my surprise, I’ve begun enjoying Beware more than Placelessness, which probably caters more to fans of PJ Harvey and Bjork while this record eschews vocal histrionics for a more restrained but no less aroused approach.

The ramshackle nylon-stringed acoustic and occasional electric guitars, plus simple, organic-sounding horn and string arrangements, add a brooding backdrop to Simone’s renderings. Unless you speak Russian, chances are you’ll be clueless as to what she’s saying, but that shouldn’t stop you from understanding what she’s talking about. The glowering songs aptly convey Dyagileva’s restlessness and anger.

On “From Great Knowledge,“ Simone significantly slows the tempo from Dyagileva’s original to give full weight to the dark, desperate lyrics (translated): “From great knowledge comes only sorrow/ From a reckless mind, only ditches and moats/ From a beautiful soul, only scabs and lice/ From universal love, only mugs in blood.” A moaning cello adds gravity to the matter.

Perhaps the best description of these songs is the title of third track, “My Sadness is Luminous.” Simone’s reworking of the tunes communicates a distinct despair, but she also successfully seizes the palpable glow of Dyagileva’s music that still attracts followers like moths to lamplight.