So we've been analysing, comparing and contrasting Little Boots and La Roux for what seems like forever now, but check it, another Ellie is on the block. Ellie Goulding is the latest London girl making waves in the sea of wanna-be starlets.
The diversity of her influences (like folk and dubstep) will make her a bit of a wildcard. Which path will she go down? Checking her out totally gave me an excuse to dig up Sam Sparro's 'Black and Gold' and it's Russ Chimes remix - both which I unashamedly adore; the original in it's synthesiser drenched glory and Russ Chimes' uplifting extended edit complete with it's rocking synth-pop breakdown.
Anyway, back to Ellie Goulding - she has a superbly agile voice, ethereal with a bubblegum pop tone in there too. In 'Black + Gold' these vocals are laid on top of sustained, echoey synths, sparsely picky guitars set against handclaps that drive the beat forward. The other tracks I've heard reinforce the Imogen Heap cues, and also remind me something of pseudo-lezzas Tatu, and real-life lezza-sistaz, Tegan and Sara.
On second glance though, Goulding is more like a crossbreed between a far more electronic, sped up version of Laura Marling accompanied by an Imogen Heap kind of resonance; though to me she doesn't have a very 'British' sound to her music at all.
To throw in a reference that might put her a little more into context, Frankmusik produced 'Wish I Stayed'. Vincent Frank on production duties sees an ever so subtle use of his beloved vocal glitches - used with a light hand though, and I detect some kind of autotune in there amongst the stomping drums interspersed with double kicks.
She's exciting cause she's fresh. I'm getting a little tired of seeing the La//Boots all over the shop, despite loving their music. The only thing about Goulding is that despite enjoying the tracks that have been floating around online, she's been reminding me little too much of the Pokemon Movie soundtrack that I used to love in my darkest pop hour of need at thirteen. That might be because I was made to watch 'Dragonball Evolution' last night. But let's see if anything gets made of little Miss Ellie Goulding shall we?
