Elizabeth Anka Vajagic
Stand With The Stillness Of This Day

Mark this name down, you'll hear about her again, you can bet on it: Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, Croatian blood pulsating in a folk-noir heart. Mark it down, otherwise I won't continue. Now we're there.

The dark Elizabeth records thanks to the Canadian Constellation, but don't be deceived, you young ones eager for post-pulsations: although elements from Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Silver Mt. Zion rush to support the young lady, it's not in that area that we move, quite the opposite. Here the instruments are not allowed to flow, but it is the voice that dominates, sometimes light as a feather, sometimes sharp as a knife, sometimes heavy as a stone. To understand it, the first endless minutes of "With Hopes Lost" are enough, one of those songs that quickly takes you by the hand and leads you far away, a dark painful lament close to Black Heart Procession of "1", towards whom Vajagic seems to owe quite a bit of inspiration, albeit painfully personalized effectively.
Vajagic's world is made of darkness and burns, affliction and desolation that translate into mournful guitars and sulfurous rhythms, almost as if the music serves only as a frame for the brushstrokes dictated by the voice, through tales of poignant melancholy.

Forget every glimmer of modernity: Vajagic pushes us backward, to the origins of singing, when it didn't matter what was played, as long as ears listened and the mind was led into stories of life and death. And "Stand with the stillness of this day" is nothing but a collection of stories, before a collection of songs. Essentially music for voice and guitar, like a pared-down Joni Mitchell. Here the voice is accompanied by a bass wandering through graveyards, and I could swear I've seen Joy Division in full swing dancing among the coffins; there the piano inserts itself mournfully, and Nick Cave sips whiskey and gathers ghosts. I could continue forever and say that elsewhere all of this reminds me of the early - unforgettable - Tarnation, towards the end I felt a chill and Mazzy Star memories alternated with the best moments of the best Linda Perry. When the voice becomes sensual and soft, it reminds me of the dark and never enough loved Jennifer Charles.

Come on, guys, I could continue like this infinitely, and this is a good thing because it shows how this girl got inside me. But something troubles me, because it happened too quickly, and I don't understand. Or, maybe, it happened too violently, and mine is just a jealous reaction, here: I'm just afraid this young lady will end up overshadowing all my youthful loves to which - continuously - she reminds me without remorse.
Mark this name down, if you deceived me before, I beseech you.