Ella Raphael

Ella Raphael is blessed with an amazing voice; a woozy, bluesy, euphoric sound that’s filled with warmth and emotion; it’s engaging, like an old friend telling tales and spinning stories.

Brought up on Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf her travels in the UK, US, Australia and Spain have refined that eclectic mix, adding The Shirelles, Julee Cruise, Love, Serge Gainsbourg, Karen Dalton (to whom her lilting vocal occasionally recalls), ESG, Broadcast, Vashti Bunyan, Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, the original masters of Tropicalia, exotic 50s guitars and the more esoteric sounds of The Beatles.

“A timeless, Tropicália-tinged daydream” Gorilla vs Bear

There is something free and uninhibited about her. Her music bridges alternate realities, if past to present or connection to disconnection. Wrapping it all with lush harmonies and psychedelic hymns, low- fi and freak folk.

Ella was wooed by the symbolism of time and place, inspired by the movies of Jodorowsky and Godard’s ‘Le Mépris’ she began assimilating it all into her own songs. Writing outdoors freedom has always been a virtue to her – soaking it up – Ella penned songs that are at once aching and brittle, then elated and celebratory; she has perfected a sound that’s as wide-ranging as her influences and experiences, music that’s as beautiful as its surroundings, using the intricacies and subtle nuances of sound to channel both light and dark into her music.

“I very much connect to what the poet mark strand says about music: The creative force best capable of giving voice and shape to our most ineffable experiences and most layered longings, of containing them and expanding them at once. It is our supreme language for the exhilaration of being alive.”

Following her debut single ‘See You Through’, the hypnotic ‘Tangled Love’  trips into Tropicalia territory; a hazy, echoey vibraphone-led slice of melancholy with a lush lap steel guitar adding some exquisite exotica.

“The song is about the way we are raised, a breakdown in communication, and the entanglement that evolves as a result.” Ella Raphael

‘Tangled Love’  is a noirish lament for love; a timeless moment filled with aching memories, with an Yma Sumac sub melody underpinning the sha la la la of perfect pop.