Ella Raphael

Ella Raphael is blessed with an amazing voice; a woozy, bluesy, euphoric sound that’s filled with warmth and emotion; it’s engaging, like an old friend telling tales and spinning stories.

Brought up in London, surrounded by sound, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Etta James, while encountering Queen, The Beatles and the Stones from her Dad’s collection, Ella’s musical journey continued in Australia where she met many other musicians, and ended up sailing with would-be pirates, singing in the bow of their boat and deciding that music was the path for her. Charmed by the music she has discovered on further travels across the US and Europe, she refined that eclectic mix, adding Love, Serge Gainsbourg, Karen Dalton, Vashti Bunyan, Catherine Riberio And Alpes, the original masters of Tropicalia, exotic 50s guitars.

Ella was wooed by the symbolism of time and place, inspired by the movies of Jodorowsky and Godard’s ‘Le Mépris’ she began assimilating it all into her own songs. Writing outdoors freedom has always been a virtue to her – soaking it up – Ella penned songs that are at once aching and brittle, then elated and celebratory; she has perfected a sound that’s as wide-ranging as her influences and experiences, music that’s as beautiful as its surroundings, using the intricacies and subtle nuances of sound to channel both light and dark into her music.

On her first LP ‘Mad Sometimes’, the sound comes from a stylish mix of lap steel, mandolin, guiro, congas, synthesisers, a shruti box and stringed instruments played by Ella, Eyal Samson, Uzi Ramirez, Ron Ephrati, Guy Mintus and Amir Sadot.

“A timeless, Tropicália-tinged daydream” Gorilla vs Bear

There is something free and uninhibited about her. Her music bridges alternate realities, if past to present or connection to disconnection. Wrapping it all with lush harmonies and psychedelic hymns, low- fi and freak folk.

“I very much connect to what the poet mark strand says about music: The creative force best capable of giving voice and shape to our most ineffable experiences and most layered longings, of containing them and expanding them at once. It is our supreme language for the exhilaration of being alive.”