It can sometimes feel that an artist stating they were aiming for a warm analogue sound has lost its impact with chronic overuse. There is actually an important ideal at the roots of an ambition like that, but such is the ubiquity of the claim it has almost become shorthand for non-electronic music. But if the meaning is lost to some then please allow me to point you in the direction of this new sophomore release by East London singer-songwriter Ella Clayton. Yes, she has declared the natural live sound of musicians playing together in a room, vibing off each other and responding to feelings in the moment as her intent, but you know from the very first listen that she also understood what this meant in practice. There is a looseness to the grooves, not an everybody must get stoned lethargy but a connectedness, like the music is untethered and free to flow exactly how the main narrator wishes to steer it. There are stops, moments where the emoting is given space to be felt just as there are fevered flourishes of exhilaration and vigour. I mean the recipe is almost so basic that there is a danger in over intellectualisation; the simple rule for realising that warm analogue sound is just play your music, feel it, live it, breathe it and if you are good at what you do, the magic will appear. By ensuring all the rhythm tracks were laid down live, Ella Clayton guaranteed she had the best natural canvas to unlock precisely what her music needed to do.

Essentially what I am describing is a soulfulness and within her singer-songwriter template, Ella surely has moved into a soul-folk lane that is not always so easy to access. And if real soul is to be attained in music it helps if the artist is pouring something of themselves into the grooves, which it seems Ella actually is as the singer herself confides with this assessment. “This record is a journey through longing and self-interrogation, the search for something or someone outside of myself to tell me who I am and what I want. I hope that people recognise themselves in these snapshots from my life and take comfort in the shared experience.” Opener ‘Please Me’ wastes no time in making a case for Ella as soul diva, the tumbling dice of the vocal raining down at the end of each verse tells us we are in the realms of tracks possessing a heart wrenching, late sixties southern soul distinction. The lyric is holding out for something real as it also does on ‘Mouth Said Money,’ about a manager whose promises never transposed to real life, demonstrating too that Ella has range that can meet with grungier flavours. She even stretches her voice to its boundaries, happy for some imperfections to shine. Let it be noted here though that there is no lack of light, hope and even amusement amidst the frustrations expressed. The title track especially, whilst set up as a meditation on longing and the search for companionship, still manages to tell the story of a first date that went comically wrong.

“I trace the lines of the Dolomites and you curse the day I was born” Ella sings on ‘Dolomites,’ a track that begins as an icy waltz before erupting into an explosion of frustration at the denial of a space to be alone, brilliantly executed it is too. ‘Ripples In Bedsheets’ is the folkiest sound we have heard thus far, and the weight of the lyric welcomes a dynamic string arrangement, again all for the good of the song but I come back again to that Clayton voice as the centrepiece of all that is profound in these numbers. She is fearless in her letting go, even on a more becalmed number such as this, when Ella goes route one and lets her voice convey the feeling, she really soars. ‘I Miss Strangers’ can be added to the overflowing well of 2020’s songs inspired by lockdown and the absence of fresh human interaction, but it earns its place at the table with a nice boxed in guitar hook and a lyric born out of genuine distress. ‘Rain All Day’ mournfully misses someone lost with a more forgiving thought, gorgeously demonstrating too the power in a well written middle eight. Expanding her range further still, there is a soothing country lilt to ‘October Trip’ before ‘Seagull Song’ arrives with the easy lift of a sea breeze until ‘Tell Me Something’ brings a little sombre violin to the table. It transpires that this tranquil three song suite is tactfully sequenced as a set up for the return of Ella’s lolling, soulful folk free form truth seeking on spectacular extended finale ‘As You Are.’ Before playing out to the most satisfying of closing instrumental breaks, we hear Ella celebrating the warmth of love, platonic as much as romantic, felt with the most intensity in moments of mundane everyday life. It is a fine place to end because firstly, you are hungry for more but secondly, it cleverly wraps the essence of deferential respect for the unexpected tangents in life as mirrored by the unplanned diversions heard in this music. So, I come back to where we started, by admiring how Ella Clayton is effortlessly attaining an honest integrity to her work that many declare an ambition for but far fewer actually realise. The sound on ‘Could It Be You?’ is music creation that is wholly uninhibited to be what it feels, that is free to be true.

Danny Neill

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