Tonight Ellie Ford is launching her début album The Other Sun at Bleach and I’m gutted not to be able to make it to the show, although I’m sure one of my colleagues will be there to appreciate the evening and I have to admit I’m a little jealous. I’ve been listening to the album all week and it’s a captivating piece of work, full of rich instrumentation, skilfully performed with precision and led by Ford’s soulful vocal, which is full of grace and poise. From the opening notes of ‘The Sweet Life’, played on the distinctive Wurlitzer electric piano sound that has always reminded me of Bill Withers, you enter into another world. It’s a carefully constructed place, everything is delicately arranged and there’s an over-whelming melancholy mood that completely envelops you. The album suspends you, like a leaf dancing in spring breezes caught between the changing temperatures, pulled in every direction but surrendering to none. The songs float along on spidery grooves, sparse or fluttery and feathery, rather than pinned down with a solid backbone. The space this creates allows the classic folk and blues instruments found here plenty of room to manoeuvre, and they do so expertly. The additional male harmonies on the chorus of ‘Sweet Life’ make it sound like a lost track from Gomez’s debut album – the vibe is all there, a soulful, bluesy concoction, warming as a welcome hug. As we move towards the outro there’s a very Beatlesy descending pattern hidden just beneath the surface. Next ‘The Only One’ establishes itself with a sweet electric guitar motif; it sounds like the sort of song Jeff Buckley would have loved to cover, in his early days, when he recorded Live At Sin E, had it been written at the time. This track keeps it simple, just that guitar (which is deeper and grittier than you might expect) and Ellie’s sweet voice expressing the beautifully melancholic mood.

Ellie Ford is a harpist, so the Joanna Newsom comparison is hard to resist, especially on a tune like ‘How Do You Know’. Here the harp comes to the fore and there are other Newsom-like devices at play: little clarinet flourishes, excellent off-beat percussion, a dense arrangement and a melody that wanders around the words in interesting ways. Sure, it reminds me of Newsom, but whether she’s a big influence or not you’d be a fool to deny that this song is a real achievement. It gets through so much in five and a half minutes and truly all of it is great. There’s a particularly moving moment when the violin comes in after about three minutes and it just sounds amazing. ‘Old Best’ continues to showcase the harp and voice; Ellie sinks down to some pretty deep notes, near the bottom of her range and it sounds so intimate, like she is there whispering in your ear. The drumming on this track is fantastic too, combined with those floating harp arpeggios, full of mysterious suspensions, there are moments where this almost sounds like Japanese classical music.

‘Homebound’ has a major but melancholic chord pattern that sows bittersweet seeds in your soul and waters them with melody. There’s an Americana spirit to this tune, it’s intoxicating and curious how such yearning can be so comforting. Then there’s ‘July’, the first single from the album which has a real propulsion to it, from the rhythm of the electric guitar to the expressive drumming, it has more momentum than most of the album, but doesn’t lack for beautiful melodic flourishes – that flute is perfect! When things strip down to just guitars again we get to hear some exceptional violin playing, the fiddler has incredible tone and it’s been expertly captured. ‘Reprise’ is an interesting interlude, with its epic strings, harp and clarinet it sounds like a cinematic score from some Celtic-themed movie, it stands out as quite distinct from the rest of the material on the album, and not just from the lack of vocal. The treatment is different, favouring the strings, and it shows off a skill for composition which led me to think it wouldn’t be too surprising if Ford found future work in the film industry.

‘My Bird Won’t Sing’ is another track that strips things down to just voice and one instrument, this time it’s an acoustic guitar, but it takes a while to realise that. The guitar has a dynamic arrangement, it pushes and pulls, it fills the space with complex finger-picking and empties it out with simple two note chords, taking you on a journey that never gets tired. ‘Ten Times’ has a really interesting double tracking sound on the vocal – the audio geek in me zones into it, a voice following the main melody but with a slightly different tone and placed in the distance. This track builds nicely to crescendo with harmony voices but relies throughout mostly on the harp and electric piano to carry the song – it’s great how they shift which instrument takes the focus from track to track. It’s rare to hear a band of five musicians giving each other so much room, and the result is excellent dynamics. Whenever they decide to fill the space and all play up it is all the more effective for the space they’ve left empty before it.

The album closes with two of the best numbers, ‘Don’t Tell Me Where You’re Going’ has the sort of soft-soulful vibe of Norah Jones, it’s easy going and breezy, and there’s a great deep guitar lick I could imagine sitting in a Roy Orbison song. When the wind instruments and strings back up the melody I find the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I would have expected them to leave us with an even sparser song, but I’m pleasantly surprised by ‘Blackout’ with its close prairie harmonies and excellent percussion. The drums remind me of Mitchell Froom’s production on the first couple of Ron Sexsmith albums, with drums tuned up to a really high pitch. The pattern and melodies are very familiar, this is classic folk, blues, roots, Americana – whatever you want to call it, it’s great. There seems to be a well deserved buzz building around Ellie and her talented bandmates, I first encountered her as the ‘E’ in KATE – a band of four song-writers who pitched their skills and songs together. That band didn’t go the distance but it’s fantastic to get my hands on this record and hear all of that talent realised so perfectly on such a mature and cohesive first record. Here’s hoping it is the first of many!
Adam Kidd

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