Geese<\/a> on their US tour dates but otherwise seems to have been playing pubs and small venues in London (including the buzzy Windmill) and Manchester for a couple of years now. As recently as October he was opening the student night at Sheffield\u2019s Sidney & Matilda, where he apparently went down the usual storm. His next London show (at the ICA on 9 December) sold out within an hour, but if his self-produced debut arrives to burgeoning expectations it\u2019s entirely because of the quality of the music.<\/p>\nThe few reviewers who have seen Ellis so far mostly compare him to Jeff Buckley or his father, Tim Buckley \u2013 fair comparisons given how Ellis\u2019s remarkable vocals can settle into a dreamy falsetto so fragile he could be dancing on a pin, and then suddenly perform a handbrake turn into intensity, even anger. The way the arrangements (including saxophone and drums) dart around his voice in ornate little counter-melodies recalls fellow Irishman Van Morrison, and recent single To the Sandals noticeably nods to Joan Armatrading\u2019s Love and Affection. Thom Yorke and Rufus Wainwright have also been mentioned, but none of these comparisons quite pin Ellis down, not least because he shifts shape so frequently.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Dove Ellis: Pale Song \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Beautiful opener Little Left Hope begins as fragile as Nick Drake, but erupts into something much more rousing, the words capturing the rocky road to making music: \u201cMaybe we\u2019ll start a band \/ With the strangler you have to like \/ Cos he knows how to play the drums.\u201d Ellis\u2019s lyrics frequently seem to flutter between hope and despair, before building to a purifying conclusion. In the magically warm Pale Song, the past is a trouble which, perhaps, can be shaken off: \u201cThe past is like a sign \/ A sign it never talks \/ A sign you think you\u2019ve lived \/ But it\u2019s just stone with a little chalk.\u201d In the singalong-friendly Love Is, he roars, \u201cLove is not the antidote to all your problems,\u201d but concludes, \u201cLove is your last chance.\u201d In Jaundice he uses the unlikely vehicle of rumbustious rock\u2019n\u2019roll infused with an Irish jig to seemingly rail against unfairness: \u201cSometimes a child is born without any face \/ At the breast of their own mother right out of place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ellis has described To the Sandals \u2013 a Bandcamp release now mixed\/spruced up by Big Thief producer Andrew Sarlo \u2013 as concerning \u201creflections on a failing shotgun marriage in Canc\u00fan\u201d. Not that the unlikely subject of an ill-fated union hastened by pregnancy in Mexico is particularly obvious in lines such as: \u201cFrom your grace \/ The sadist fails \/ Their red blade \/ A-rallying, tallying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trying to unravel the songs\u2019 meanings can become a parlour game, but it\u2019s enough to savour his dazzling use of language or the sheer emotion in heart-swelling songs such as When You Tie Your Hair Up. The 10 tunes are so strong they seem as familiar as old friends, and if Ellis isn\u2019t reinventing the wheel, he\u2019s certainly giving the old thing a caring coat of varnish. His songs sound meticulously crafted but the recordings themselves have a beautifully intimate, unadorned, down-home feel. At times, the picked and strummed guitars, rolling 70s rock piano, wind instruments and clattering percussion are interspersed with random noises and distortion, but somehow everything seems to have fallen perfectly into place on a glorious debut.<\/p>\n
This week Dave listened to<\/p>\n
Louis O\u2019Hara \u2013 Magpie
From Pembroke Dock in west Wales, this gently folksy tribute to a longstanding friendship is unusually touching and truly lovely.<\/p>\n
Alexis Petridis is away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The information age has made it much more difficult for artists to cultivate mystique. Gone are the days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-330026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}