A powerful, stirring, passionate and mature debut by the 29-year-old Glasgow-based Scottish singer with Polish and Ukrainian heritage who has toured as the new Pogues singer, and whose alternative folk songs capture raw emotions and the experience of modern womanhood, with echoes of PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Aldous Harding and Lankum. Working also with artists including Irish folk artists Lisa O’Neill as well as Lankum, and supporting Alison Moyet, Zajac has a voice with tangible, commanding presence. Her songs bring dynamic contrasts, from the slow, smoky, dark, pared-back opener Bowls with heavy drums, dark low-key thrum strings, and ending in crashing cymbals, to the title track, a soaring number of sexually liberated joy and tongue-in-cheek confidence with jangly guitar indie-pop (“I’ll bang the head off you /Just to beat the blues”). Dilute dives beautifully into simmering, low-key potency. A previous single, the spectral folk of Summer, with delicious guitar and a haunting melody that has a flavour of Aldous Harding. Every track has a different shade of autumnal beauty, and sometimes wonderful oddness, such as the dreamscape of Chicken Supermarket, which imagines hallucinatory encounters with Billy Connolly and seas of jelly. But perhaps the most powerful is Anton, accompanied with gentle guitar, a continuous drone, and is a tale of toxic relationships- a personification of all the men who assumed they had the upper hand, awho haunted her teens with their egos and their hands, with vivid details of unclothing and lack of consent, the song building to a crescendo of pain and rage. There’s much more to enjoy here, from the deliciously beautiful Salt, the gently catchy Murder Mystery, the finger-picking dreamy feel of Ridiculous Hat, and the vivid Lankum-styles drones of that introduce Loving Is Rough before her exposed, sensitive, lamenting vocals. With sheer ange, control and passion, it’s a truly stunning debut by a wonderful talent.
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