- In more ways than one Ella Haber appears fully formed, on her debut EP. Clay is a record that delivers -unlike most jazz vocal wannabes- a voice that is both silky and strong. It’s as much a soul sound as a jazz one, always pushing power through the classic inflections and adding just enough acrobatic, modern r’n’b. Behind the voice is an old soul, too, choosing not only a breakup record for her debut, but being pretty grownup about it. You can hear why Jordan Rakei jumped on board to produce and help bring this record into the world. There’s a wholeness, something philosophically complete to Clay, the sort of thing which not just musicians but people search endlessly for.
Jordan Rakei, for instance, seems to go further down his own personal rabbit-hole, searching for spiritual fulfillment, with every record he releases. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of what attracted him to working with Ella. Undoubtedly the pair are musical peas-in-a-pod, too, their styles as closely matched as a rhodes and an upright bass. Having said that Ella’s is the more ‘classic’ of the pair, eschewing Rakei’s neosoul affectations in favour of some older school vocal, jazz-pop sounds. The opening cut Old Friends, a lamentation for the way romance can actually just be a good way to destroy a friendship is made circumspect, given an upbeat power by trumpet and sax sounding like they were borrowed from ‘60’s Bacharach and some intermittent melodic echoes from The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It Be Nice; whether that's intentional or not, it jibes interestingly here, in a song which is like a more realistic, mature survey of the same territory.
Speaking of echoes, Responsibility opens with the same trick (unless I'm completely imagining it), riffing off the percussive paranoia of Bill Withers’ classic Who Is He (And What Is He To You) while negotiating an awkward interaction with an old flame’s new squeeze. It doesn’t stay there though, opening into its own thing and something wide and lush at that, the rhodes giving way to reverberant synth. The backing vocals, particularly, are a bravura addition. Can I again stress the maturity on display? As Ella builds to a thunder, singing “Your words like lethal bullets to my heart / You and she both pretending I had a choice in this / But who would choose to split a love in half before it starts? / Cause I never could find joy in tearing you apart.” I wish I could be half so big in that kind of situation.
The string orchestration embellishing the slow, sweet sadness of Behind Closed Eyes is a bit of a joy. It really is a pleasure to hear the more complex sounds of yesterday’s pop reproduced with such care and attention. The gentle helplessness of this number is tracked adroitly next to the uptempo, empowered anthem of the EP’s title cut. Quickly drying its tears in the face of harsh, cold reality: “I am not your ragdoll, I’m not your toy / I’m just a lovestruck girl and you a horny boy / Where is your discipline? Please leave me be / ‘cause the moment this begins I’m in and you’re desperate to be free.” Closer Puppets, takes the balance of the previous two numbers and plays it out over a simple slow four-four. A plain beat for some honest conclusions: “We are victims of time, it chose to leave us behind” is kind of a beautiful elegy for a relationship.
It’s funny how much of Clay dwells on and in the past. Yesterday’s sounds, yesterday’s flames and feelings that can’t be let go. Ella Haber’s honesty and talent confronts it all and draws a line under it. Delivered with such control and dignity, Ella Haber comes across as elegant, fully-formed, the whole thing.
- Chris Cobcroft.