Elizabeth Anka Vajagic - Stand With The Stillness of This Day

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4...according to our Brian on Sat 09 Dec, 2006.

Fancy some tortured Southern Gothic folk vignettes in the vein of early PJ Harvey, Diamanda Galas, Black Heart Procession or Nina Nastasia? Well look no further than Elizabeth Anka Vajagic's album on Constellation. Called 'Stand With The Stillness Of this Day', this is dark & deep stuff indeed. Augmented by members of Godspeed & A Silver Mt. Zion, this is indeed the kind of thing that delights a whole bunch of you lot out there. It's pretty marvellous stuff I reckon but not for the faint hearted. PJ Harvey's 4 track demos is a good place to start if you wish to learn the mournfulness & catharsis these tunes reverberate with! Nice CD at the mo' with even nicer vinyl to folllow!

With this debut recording, Elizabeth Anka Vajagic sets her vocals against a backdrop led by ragged guitars, moving from harrowing, dry-as-a-bone intimacy ("With Hopes Lost", "Iceland") to reverb-soaked torch-song balladry ("Around Here", "Sleep With Dried Up Tears"), and the odd explosive noise freak-out along the way ("Where You Wonder"). Vajagic's voice and lyrics are uniquely powerful, able to move across a considerable range while remaining guttural, unflinching and honest as hell. Through much cross-pollination with the local noise/improv scene, Elizabeth has assembled a fine cast of players to add textures and arrangements to the seven tracks on this debut record, making for an intense cycle of songs peppered with skittering drums, contrebasse, cello, harmonium, piano, bowed cymbals, and oud. Guest players include Chris Burns and Simon Fazakerly (Crackpot) on guitars, Beckie Foon (Silver Mt. Zion, Esmerine) on cello, Michel Langevin (Voivod) on drums, Fluffy Erskine (Molasses, Hrsta) on musical saw, Sam Shalabi (The Shalabi Effect, solo) on oud and Efrim (GY!BE, Silver Mt. Zion) on piano, harmonium, guitar and backing vocals. The album was recorded by Howard Bilerman at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal.

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