Robert Ellis
Acoustic
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“I want this record to be more about the Paul Simons and the Randy
Newmans and the other half of my upbringing,
which is very much rooted in pop.” – Ellis recently told Rolling Stone
Robert Ellis is the kind of songwriter who only comes along once in a great
while. With his first two albums, a promise was made. With his new
record, The Lights from the Chemical Plant, that promise has been delivered
and fully realized. The music, like the artist, refuses to accept the confines of a
box, and burns white-hot from the inside out. But what seems even more
striking about this record, this musician, even at a first glance, is that feeling
of unyielding authenticity.
With every remarkable cut, with every twist and turn, Robert’s life and his
experience, shine through. His days growing up in a small industrial town in
Texas, his move to Houston, and now as a 25-year-old man, when not on the
road performing around the world, living with his wife in Nashville.
The Lights from the Chemical Plant, produced with great care and precision by
Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones), and recorded at Eric
Masse’s Casino studio in East Nashville for New West Records, is an album
that has a way of grabbing you by the hand and pulling you in so that it can
play with your soul. Alive with memories and innovation, you become
absorbed in the world Robert paints with his smoky lyrics, his hypnotic voice,
and his masterful work on the guitar. But then something happens. Something
new. Something special. And it begins with the very song for which the album
is named, “Chemical Plant.” You realize that Robert’s building layer upon layer
of different sounds from different places and different times. A synthesis of
sounds and textures that pick you up and pull you in even deeper.
R&B, bossa nova, fusion, free jazz – from the rousing beat of “Good
Intentions” to the floor stomping bluegrass anthem “Sing Along,” you’ve
bought your ticket and you’re in for the ride. And so it goes, the floodgates
standing wide open. The quiet, unexpected feel of a jazz guitar in perfect
union with a steel guitar in the ballad, “Steady as the Rising Sun.” And so it
goes. The soulful wobble of a saxophone in “Bottle of Wine,” and the dreamy pedal steel that draws you into “TV Song.” These are songs about love gained,
about love lost, about growing up in a place where nobody stands too tall for
fear of being knocked down (“Sing Along”). These are songs about lives
broken, lives healed, and moving on.
As if that weren’t enough, Robert gives us his interpretation of Paul Simon’s
classic, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” which is pure elegance, cut against
the song “Only Lies” with its quiet pulse, its dusky blue lyrics, and the story of
a man trying to help a friend who refuses to believe that her husband is
cheating on her… |