Abaton Book Company
Julia Vorontsova : from St.Petersburg with love (RU,2004)***°
I was pleased to hear that Julia Vorontsova has now released a full CD. Her debut EP was more than just promising. On the back-cover we see here a very beautiful young girl. Her songs are very minimal but emotionally expressive. Sometimes the guitar has some echo but nothing more. There’s included a text-book of her songs translated into English, with some additional comments. For me her songs don’t necessarily need textual comprehension, for Julia is one of those few voices that speak immediately to the heart, but the notes are welcome to bring us even closer to the songs. With a certain melancholy Julia Vorontsova succeeds with all songs to achieve a direct effect on the listener with her singing. “Love” from the demo still is one of those highlights for me. I also like very much “One kitten”, where Julia imitates kitten sounds in the song. Most songs are between 1 and three minutes long, very short, all with a sensitivity as ‘a poet from the heart’. “Grandfather” received a slower, even more melancholic version with second vocals. At first listen I was slightly disappointed by a couple of tracks where she had the tendency to go out of tune with her singing ; although the emotionality compensates, I wondered a first how a little bit of training could have overcome this, but then I also thought that any such accompaniment, when not understanding Julia's essence of being, could destroy as well the purity of her voice and of her approach to music. Although Julia is a very young bard, she still expresses as “an old soul” and seems to have lots of depth in her expressions, which are definitely infused with love, from St. Petersburg. Beautiful !
