Elizabete Balcus hails from Riga in Latvia, and having started her career making a hybrid of pop and baroque classical styles, she's now opted to fuse her gorgeous voice and fluttering flute with very assured sounding electronics. The results are quite unique.
We'd first been alerted to her music by various reports of her spectacular and unashamedly eccentric live appearances at a number of festivals over the summer, where reports of a leotard-clad Balcus playing an array of MIDI-synched vegetables had got a number of different reviewers pouring forth with the praise. A great live show doesn't always equate to a corking recorded output though, but we're happy to report that 'IKA', the first song from a forthcoming second album is very definitely living up to the hype.
With its lyrics based around the ancient Greek myth of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun and plunged to a watery grave when his wings melted, it's a curious but compelling mixture of a mutated two step garage bassline, washing ambient soundscapes, that trademark flute sound and a haunting vocal performance. You've got to particularly love the track's central hook, which is just Balcus laughing to herself. You can look forward to eliciting plenty of strange looks from onlookers when you spontaneously sing it aloud top yourself in public. Which, take it from us, you will do.
With mushrooming fan bases around Europe especially - the Italians were on the case early and particularly love her - she is venturing away from her Latvian base more and more, and no doubt will be playing the Uk again soon, after a storming Camden show in support of Extricate faves Gabi Garbutt & The Illuminations back in June. In the meantime, we'd recommend five portions of 'IKA' a day for healthy living.
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