Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
There is something unexpectedly delicious waking up to the sound of a good dawn chorus. Depending on the type of bird that sits and nests near your home, the early morning alarm call is perhaps, alongside the dawning of the sun, one of the very few real reasons to feel grateful to be alive at six in the morning. The songbird is much heralded for that incentive to crawl your eyes awake and allow the senses to take part in the natural action available.
To assist the feeling, the blossoming, call of the living also seems to be the rationale of the sublime voice of Scottish artist Ella The Bird. In her 2012 album Glorified Demons the music is one of pastoral elegance wrapped up in the vocal shawl of immortality. It is almost handmade, the overpowering giddiness that comes with individuality and not giving in to 21st Century demands of overcrowding and punishing congestion stripping back the appeal and offering something that could be seen as false and untouchable. Glorified Demons is pure, complete because it knows exactly at the right point to stop and never becomes over bearing or obnoxious.
Even the packaging in which it comes from owes more to the natural world than the sometimes thought of dishonesty that comes from opening a C.D. or clicking on a button on a keyboard. If a package can draw you in just by its texture then the songs encased within have much to offer even below its surface.
Tracks such as Laugh and Die, Soldier of The Night, Car Crash Two, Ta Petite Minette and Rudy and Vanessa all embody the natural urge to live and capture the moment as if it is the very last time it can happen. The album is consistent in that and it really strikes home the importance of being genuine, unpretentious and sincere. For Ella The Bird it is something so innate and effortless that it shines through in her stunning voice.
Glorified Demons is a rare treat of an album!
Ian D. Hall