Ellis

"No More Twisted Roads, No More Twisted Words"

So Ellis a favorite singer/songwriter of mine recently put out a new album "Break the Spell" which, I have had for awhile now and wow is it ever a blessing. This album brings together older new tracks, with brand new ones, and some old tracks completely redone and the result is something really fantastic. While it took me awhile to get into the cd-now I find myself randomly humming these tunes from my preschool job to the bar crawl.

I have loved Ellis from the first time someone put the songs "Sacred" and "Give Me Your Hand" on a mixed cd for me. and my respect for her as both an artist has only flourished. While at Luther I saw Ellis at Rochester (MN) PRIDE and she was so sweet and loved the Luther Lesbians for Peace and the sign we made her "LLP loves Ellis" and told us she would be at Michigan leading a small song school. Then the next year we were putting on a Peace Week Concert and she agreed to drive herself down from the Twin Cities and play for an extremely reasonable price (we also got the chance to meet and interact with her quite intimately preparing her gluten-free vegan meal) and even the gay boys fell in love with her thoughtful and touching lyrics.

This cd combines the personal and private spheres in order to make them political on tracks like "City on Fire" and "Before You Leave." Of course my favorite song is Twisted Roads although I like the rawness of the live version on Blueprint Live slightly better, I do like the studio version she recorded for the new album also. As for new songs, "Break the Spell" delivers an overwhelming combination of lyrics as well as musical accompaniment. My favorite line is something to the effect of "There are many ways to be careless, stories that we tell, and even when they are lies we hold them like they're fragile so afraid to break the spell." I feel a deep and intimate connection to this line in my explorations of truth and truthfulness and the slippages in between. While not all the tracks are perfect gems I would say that the album itself delivers some slightly cohesive meanings about love and even more profoundly about loss and while there are multiple ways to "read" the songs I like albums that you can see being inspired by specific contexts, situations, identities, and feelings. This makes the album both compelling and inspiring and I am glad to say worth the wait for a near and dear Ellis Music supporter.

With that said there had been a song both on the "Angels" page and that she performed live that does not appear on the CD. It is something about reading books, turning pages, anyone know what I am talking about? Why did it not make the cut? And is it available anywhere now?