{"id":79870,"date":"2022-09-26T16:24:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T20:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/records\/elizabete-balcus-hotel-universe\/"},"modified":"2022-10-05T10:15:52","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T14:15:52","slug":"elizabete-balcus-hotel-universe","status":"publish","type":"records","link":"https:\/\/panm360.com\/en\/records\/elizabete-balcus-hotel-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabete Bal\u010dus – Hotel Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the shores of the Baltic Sea comes Elizabete Bal\u010dus, author, composer, and performer of protean songs. In Rome, Ms. Bal\u010dus studied operatic singing at an illustrious conservatory called Santa Cecilia, which once had a certain Ennio Morricone as a student. In Riga, Latvia, she studied pop and jazz at the J\u0101zeps V\u012btols School of Music. In 2011, she released Wooden Horses<\/em>, an EP with a rather folk leaning. Then in 2016 Elizabete Bal\u010dus released Conarium<\/em>, a lush collection with twelve original songs and a cover by CocoRosie. And here, six years later, is Hotel Universe<\/em>, an album of ten disturbingly beautiful pieces. Is this auditory experience comparable to listening to a Loreena McKennitt album on LSD? Would the Celtic melodies of the Ontarian bard be adorned with the unheard percussions, the various synthetic laces, the concupiscent sax, and the Dionysian flutes of Elizabete Bal\u010dus? Still, we are dealing here with a creator that the abundant arrangements do not repel. Through songs with names that are both evocative and zany, similar to the names of works by Pedro Almod\u00f3var or Margaret Atwood (\u201cUntil You’re Flesh Free,\u201d \u201cNarcissism Purgatory,\u201d \u201cThe Skin I Live in,\u201d \u201cOuroboros,\u201d \u201cGet Naked,\u201d \u201cVenus Flytrap\u201d or, my favorite, \u201cAsparagus or Brussels Sprouts?\u201d), Miss Bal\u010dus makes us hear all kinds of things. She goes foraging here at Bj\u00f6rk, there at Laurie Anderson, without ever lingering. The musicophiles who are fond of taxonomy might get a headache here, as the pieces touch various sub-genres without ever settling down: synth-pop, folktronica, chamber folk, chamber pop, electroacoustic, baroque folk, electronica, art-pop, ambient-pop, and tutti quanti. Elizabete Bal\u010dus is an elusive creator, and that is to her artistic credit.
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