Earlier this year I wrote enthusiastically about Flaming Top Hat’s raw, honest and intriguing debut album Photographs And Water, a solo project by American singer-songwriter Ellie Blake. Apparently her creativity was there early on: on the just released EP Melodicized! she shares four songs she wrote when she was 15, and all show a rich imagination and an abundance of ideas. The first lines are great, and it doesn’t get any less: “We haven’t talked in like five weeks except for some interactions that were brief // And don’t count by my arbitrary standards // For social interaction // God I love my arbitrary standards” (from I’ve Been). Or a title like Immanuel Kant Goes To The Grocery Store, you and I couldn’t think of it (“You wake up from like a really weird nightmare, and it’s 5AM, and the sun’s starting to come up a little just enough to make it hard to fall back asleep but not enough to make it easy to wake up”). Poetry in motion, hopefully the start of a deserved glorious career.
Melodicized! is out now digitally via Friend’s House Records. Add to wantlist: Bandcamp