Ania Ziemirska was the girl that other kids teased. Smart, geeky, intense, and often overlooked by the cool crowd, the tenacious outsider, who didn’t speak a word of English when she immigrated to Canada from Poland at the age of nine, found her solace from insecurity and loneliness in writing and performing songs.

What began as the teenaged poetry of love and luck has evolved over the last decade into a growing songbook of emotionally arresting, nakedly astute, and deftly crafted lyrical snapshots that linger long after the musical notes have faded.

Ziemirska garners the inevitable comparisons – to Sarah McLachlan for her studied yet accessible tunesmithing, Chrissie Hynde for her whiskey and honey-dipped vocals, Natalie Merchant for her controlled yet passionate delivery and to Joni Mitchell for her exhaustive range – but there’s always an extra something that makes Ziemirska’s songs her own.

Written over the course of a year in 2007-2008, her debut EP, I Was The Girl captures a pivotal moment in the evolution of an artist. At times wistful, at others rollicking, her songs pair universal fears, hopes, dreams and denials with insightful, imaginative folk, blues and pop-infused melodies in ways that seem, quite frankly, well beyond her years.

aniazmusic.com