Album: Dana Gavanski – When It Comes review

by Philip Moss

Music of the spheres – Dana Gavanski enters another world on her second album

Arriving alongside a whole host of other folk artists during 2020, her debut album, Yesterday is Gone, was a pleasant entry point for the Canadian/Serbian songwriter. But just seconds into I Kiss The Night – the opening song of her second record, When It Comes – it is clear that Gavanski has entered another world.

Gavanski’s voice has always been an enigma. But now, no longer a separate entity to her backing band, it takes the lead – and there is a weightlessness to way it guides her new found brand of cosmic pop. It floats in and out – drifting between each and every note of the weightless keyboards that provide the song’s backbone.

It’s a theme that continues throughout When It Comes. Be it the cartoon playfulness of Indigo Highway, the murky synths of Lisa, or even the angular stabs of The Reaper – producer Mike Lindsay (Tunng/Lump) ensures that nothing detracts from the record’s vocal led brilliance. It would be remiss not to mention Cate Le Bon – such are the similarities in the tonal shades of Gavanski’s soft falsetto. But Gavanski’s arrangement are straighter – less abstract – and sit closer to the wonky drama of Meilyr Jones than textured experimentations of Mega Bog.

The very construction of this set of songs is galaxies away from where Gavanski has ventured from. It feels cliche to say, but, on When She Comes, she really has ‘found’ her voice.

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