Sunday Features - CDs - October 10, 2004 (Part I)

Ella Guru (Banana Recordings)


If quiet was the new loud, whispering must be the new quiet.

2004's run of astonishing folk-infused records shows no sign of abating: indeed, they just seem to keep getting better. Adem, Gravenhurst, the Memory Band and Animal Collective have all delivered top-notch work, and now, with the help of Frank Zappa and Jimmy Carl Black, Liverpool resident Ella Guru has delivered no less than a masterpiece.


Title: Park Lake Speakers (Single)
Release Date: October 25, 2004

Well, it might be their first album, but it certainly doesn't sound like it. Everything about Liverpudlian octet Ella Guru's debut reeks of antiquity, from their name - taken from a title on Captain Beefheart's 1968 psychedelic oddity, Trout Mask Replica - to the air of exquisitely refined exhaustion that hangs over most of their songs.

Inviting the 68-year-old former associate of Frank Zappa, Jimmy Carl Black, to speak out on a couple of closing tracks confirms the impression that while they hail from the same urban stock as the Coral and the Zutons, Ella Guru are lost in deep ancestor worship.


Title: the First Album (Debut Album)
Release Date: August 9, 2004

The beauty of it lies in John Yates's songwriting, which, at its best – on This Is My Rock and Roll or Augustus Golden - nails the yearning, quietly desperate ambience of classic country rock. Just don't expect it to leap out at you.

Lead John Yates seems uncomfortable with the Americana and Lambchop comparisons: "I don't think we sound like them at all. You have a pedal-steel in a band and immediately people think you're alt. country." However, despite his protestations, it’s hard not to place some of their tunes firmly across the Atlantic. Yates’ hushed vocals can sound like Kurt Wagner’s conversational style mixed with the frailty of Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous. But, to suggest that Ella Guru are some kind of Yankee pastiche band is hugely unfair.


Title: 3 Songs from Liverpool (Single)
Release Date: September 22, 2003

Consistently tuneful, enchanting and magical, Ella Guru are a soft breeze of crisp air amongst a slew of over-rated guitar bands. They manage to be both intense but light-hearted, complex but uncluttered. Ella Guru are an unblemished polished gem of a band that lure you into their hazy soundscapes, but don’t expect them to dress in gorilla suits and play dustbin lids anytime soon.

Check out the full version of Ella Guru's the First Album in the BBC's music session.