Track By Track: Ella Thompson

Rising alternative pop purveyor ELLA THOMPSON guides us through each track of her debut album, Janus.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

'Drift'

This is probably the oldest song from the album, it has lived on my hard drive in many incarnations for years. I wanted to try a wall of sound feel for this song. A lot of the instruments are hard to distinguish but I think it makes it feel more ambiguous that way.

'Away Too Long'

I was listening to a lot of girl groups from Queens to Detroit. Lyrically it’s a bit ship to shore themed, yearning for a long lost sailer or along those lines.

'I Go Over'

This song is about being frustrated getting caught up in your own head and other’s problems. It’s got a bouncy forward energy which is good for cutting frustration loose!

'Arcade'

'Arcade' is about creating an alternate reality, entering a zone. Janus is a lot about infinity, I was reading and looking at a lot of work Japanese artist Yayoi Zusama. She is famous for her infinity rooms, where time and space move backwards and forwards at the same time. We filmed the video at Dark Zone in Box Hill which was perfect. I was very lucky to work with Jason Galea and Michael Avery.

'Gave It All Away'

This song is one of the darker moments on the album. I like the way it turned out.

'Fall'

I figured out how to use an arpeggiator for the first and that started the idea for this song. This song was more of a jam informed by playing with different synths and then I refined the form a bit into a song.

'Taller'

I wrote this song on an Omni Chord, which kind of has an inbuilt chord sequence that I probably wouldn’t think of if I was sitting at a piano. Lyrically it’s about ego, letting someone be on your side makes you taller but sometime ya just gotta let em.

'Hold Me Still'

'Hold Me Still' was the only song on the album that I wrote with someone else (Liam McGorry). The album was finished in January 2014 and then we had been sitting on it for a couple of months and thought that maybe it needed something else that was a reprieve from the density of the other songs.

'Micronaut'

This is song is about power games and using people in a non-empathetic way.

'Losing You'

I remember John bought a new bass synth and it was fun playing around with it on this song.

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Janus is out now through HUB via Caroline.