Seattle
Ellie Goulding
Monday, February 04, 2013 (7:00 PM - 2:00 AM) | 
Showbox SoDo 1700 1st Avenue South Seattle WA (Downtown)
Showbox Presents
Ellie Goulding
with St. Lucia
Ellie Goulding
with St. Lucia
Ellie Goulding is a complicated thing in a seemingly simple package. On first hearing, shes a bright and shiny 22 year old singer-songwriter, with her fingers on her guitar, her feet in a night-club and her head in the heavens. But very few singer-songwriters, young or old, can flip between dance-til-youdrop euphoria (Starry Eyed) and wistful, journeying space-folk (Guns and Horses), between lyrics that talk obliquely about sleeping around (Under The Sheets) and those that pin-point the love-hate relationship every leaver has about their home town (Wish I Stayed). Very few can do all that and leave us, the listeners, with enchantment, curious romance and, somehow, a sense of vastness, of travel, of space and time. Its pop, Jim, but not as we know it.
Ellies songs are built around big proper tunes that lift you up and spin you round, yet theres something off-centre about them, something sparkly, filmic, haunting, odd. She mixes heartfelt emotion with other-worldly atmospherics, spins cool electronica into dreamy warmth. Her insistence on putting her guitar in every song, whether an acoustic cover (shes done some amazing versions of Passion Pits Sleepyhead, Wolves by Bon Iver and Roscoe by Midlake) or a gorgeous song about new love (I try out a smile and aim it at you/You must have missed it, you always do) gives her soaring electro-folk an earthed rootedness. We note that she hasnt changed her name, that she doesnt hide behind a stage persona. She is who she is. And in person, Ellie is direct. Honest to a fault.
I like simplicity, she says, which is why Im not afraid of pop, or dance music. I just look for the hook, the centre. And it can be the words or the melody, just the one thing that can relate to everyone. Even in alternative music, or classical, if its good, there will be something direct about it.
But I also like to dig deep when it comes to lyrics. Im aware of how Im feeling all the time, so its impossible for me to write words that are contrived or meaningless.
Ellies songs are built around big proper tunes that lift you up and spin you round, yet theres something off-centre about them, something sparkly, filmic, haunting, odd. She mixes heartfelt emotion with other-worldly atmospherics, spins cool electronica into dreamy warmth. Her insistence on putting her guitar in every song, whether an acoustic cover (shes done some amazing versions of Passion Pits Sleepyhead, Wolves by Bon Iver and Roscoe by Midlake) or a gorgeous song about new love (I try out a smile and aim it at you/You must have missed it, you always do) gives her soaring electro-folk an earthed rootedness. We note that she hasnt changed her name, that she doesnt hide behind a stage persona. She is who she is. And in person, Ellie is direct. Honest to a fault.
I like simplicity, she says, which is why Im not afraid of pop, or dance music. I just look for the hook, the centre. And it can be the words or the melody, just the one thing that can relate to everyone. Even in alternative music, or classical, if its good, there will be something direct about it.
But I also like to dig deep when it comes to lyrics. Im aware of how Im feeling all the time, so its impossible for me to write words that are contrived or meaningless.
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Monday, February 04, 2013 (7:00 PM - 2:00 AM)
Showbox SoDo 1700 1st Avenue South, SeattleWA (Downtown)
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