New Music: Ellur – Satellites

The music of Halifax, West Yorkshire based musician Ellur has bridged the gap between UK radio stations like pop-oriented Radio 1 and the more niche Radio X. The emotional intensity of Satellites is a wonderful example of her ability to cross from mainstream sounds to indie and back.

Though Ellur cites a 70s folk singer’s influence on the song, her vocals look to a different musical tradition, and while the arrangement is sprinkled with pop motifs and the string flourishes towards chamber pop, it’s the RNB flavoured lead vocal and piano performances that set the song alight.

She says: “In my life I’ve witnessed the disintegration of relationships that seemed so full of love. Satellites is a song about that. When approaching the writing with Dan, I told him I wanted to write a song that felt timeless both in lyrics and melody. Inspired by Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now and seeing her perform it with just an acoustic guitar at roughly my age at Isle of Wight in 1970 and then decades later with a full orchestra and have it convey a totally different emotional landscape to the original performance.”

“I wanted the same song for myself, and I really love what we created. Tim Malkin then wrote a string arrangement for the track, and I loved how the strings really guided and tied up all the emotional nuance that we’d intentionally left so open ended in the writing. It’s a really beautiful song, that I’m really, really proud of. I loved working with the people who I’ve worked with on it. I hope one day I can perform it with a full orchestra myself. That would be the dream.”

You can hear Satellites and previous releases by Ellur on all major digital platforms including YouTube Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. For other streaming options and news on live appearances and new music from Ellur, check out her Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter feeds.