Setting the tone with an elegantly panning synth and textured percussion, Ellie Madeland opens her latest single Mother Mother with an intimate and ethereal vocal style as she sings the title of the track followed by the melancholy words, “there are tears on the table…”
The introspective artist heads into dark and difficult personal territory on Mother Mother, which is inspired by a collection of letters between Ellie and her mother, written after her parents’ divorce during her childhood.
The song documents Ellie’s sense of loss, bewilderment and desperation in that situation. She describes it as “a cleansing of sorts, far from a rant about the horrors of the past and casts aside any notions of harboured bitterness”.
The moving production really brings the story and emotion to life, with an epic and relentless build towards the end of the song that has the hair on our arms standing on edge with the fusion of industrial and ethereal soundscapes.
Instead focussing on forgiveness, Ellie simply makes a case for friendship and reconciliation, making the overwhelming case for companionship in circumstances far more likely given to animosity. She sings passionately, “I needed a friend, in the end…”
Ellie Madeland is a Swedish singer-songwriter based in London and Berlin. Her music is created together with the UK-based producer Gentle William.
As influences go, on the one hand Ellie cites the brutalism of Joy Division, Bauhaus and The Cure as her go-to artists, on the other, GW confesses his fascination with quiet melancholy of Nick Drake and Scott Walker alongside his love of contemporary adventurers like Sufjan Stevens, Bibio and Mark Linkous.
We have been streaming Ellie Madeland’s debut single Out of Nowhere and have added Mother Mother to our New Music Spotlight playlist.