Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The past may well be another country but at times the borders between then and now shift and blur so much that what was once the highest form of art soon comes back to entrance once more. Like a woman in the flourish of youth at Court being presented in front of a gaping, slack jawed crowd and then returning 40 years later and still able to command authority with wit, guile and brains and having the same crowd dance to her tune, the past comes back with frightening agile speed to ensnare and beguile us when we least expect it.
It is when the past blurs and makes something new for the listener’s ears is when captivation becomes engaging astonishment and for Moss & Jones, that engaging sense of sound comes flooding over in spades and in their new single Ella Brown, the past doesn’t just merge and obscure the thought of 21st Century living, it positively spins and helps itself to the smile of security in which the listener finds themselves revelling in.
The music that Moss & Jones make might come as a huge shock to those who have faced the modern age head on, the sound of the relentless march of aggressive time comes at people from every angle and sometimes it is too much to even remember when music was clear, simple, almost elegant in its delivery and fascinating in its structure and appeal. Yet that is exactly what Ruth Moss and Marc Jones have managed to do; they have peeled back Time as if it was a well developed onion and found something that knocks down barriers and adds a small tear of consolation to the day.
Ella Brown is an acoustic high, a tremble of variety, the huge wedge of sincerity and unabashed sense of the natural, Ruth Moss’ voice towers above the set scene and lifts the story up high. A word from the past is all that’s ever needed to make you appreciate just what was given to us and how it has led to this point. Charming, exquisite and something wonderfully different, Ella Brown is a song in which roots of appreciation for a different viewpoint are sown.
Ian D. Hall