Video Premiere: Ela Orleans – “Take My Hand”.
November 9, 2011, 0 comments
Now that we already have November, it slowly becomes apparent that 2011 has been a rather weird year for music (not necessarily a bad one, really, just weird). In lack of a universally accepted mega trend, critics tended to leap at every subtle indication of something bigger, more important, more sustainable. Curiously in particular regarding female artists in underground pop, this disposition led to some rather questionable generalizations, most prominently put forward by Simon Reynolds in his recent New York Times piece, lumping together every woman who had ever laid hands on a synthesizer keyboard in the past twelve months (on top of that with a few rather troubling omissions if you ask me).
Against this backdrop, an artist like Ela Orleans, Polish-born and now UK-based, comes along as a refreshingly detached exception. As she’s proven with both her cassette release NEO PI-R on Clan Destine earlier this year (now re-released on vinyl) as well as her fantastic split with Dirty Beaches (on LP via Night-People/La Station Radar/Atelier Ciseaux), her music is neither frantically forward-thinking nor in any way effectively retro.
For Ela Orleans, the allegedly prevailing retro-informed zeitgeist is not exactly a blind spot, but her distinctly baroque chamber pop invokes a feeling of sublime timelessness that seems make her music immune to hipsterism or infused blog buzz; that said, on the other hand this surely does not mean that she’d lack historical awareness. Case in point: Embracing the cultural heritage of her native Poland, Ela has covered “Take My Hand” for her excellent new LP Mars Is Heaven, a song originally written by Robert Brylewski and Tomek Lipinski for the 1992 album Cosmopolis of their Warsaw-based post-punk outfit Brygada Kryzys.
Curious about her relationship with the original song and generally her attitude towards the history of Polish music, I’ve asked Ela to elaborate on the decision to cover “Take My Hand”, which now has been blessed with this wonderful video you may watch exclusively below.
“Of course I grew up on Polish music. I musically grew up on post war chansonniers singing songs by Wars, Szpilmann, Wiehler to name a few and on Polish Jazz – Krzysztof Komeda, Adam Makowicz and Tomasz Stanko. I was always very fond of Jerzy “Dudus” Matuszkiewicz – an amazing score composer. He scored a ton of my favorite Polish movies. There were also classics such as Karol Szymanowski, Krzysztof Penderecki and Wojciech Kilar. I had my favorite Polish singer: Urszula Dudziak and favorite band: multi instrumentalists / close-harmony singers- Novi Singers formed in Warsaw in the 60s. These were the beginnings I either picked up on the radio or in music school.
Later I was very fond of reggae and punk. Especially reggae. Buying a good record in Poland during cold war and in the nineties amounted to a miracle and in order to listen to Joy Division or Sex Pistols I had to buy a pirate tape from a shady vendor. I obsessively taped music from radio and TV. Most of the stuff available to the public was pretty bad. The best programmes were at night or during the time I was supposed to be at school. Luckily my parents didn’t mind me staying up late or skip the school. I was quite a recluse, locked up in my own private collection of BASF and TDK cassettes I never played to ANYONE.
I could rarely express any enthusiasm for Polish bands then (and even more so now). Brygada Kryzys was one of the few exceptions. They looked cool, they went to art school, they were beaten up by the police, and most importantly they played and sang as well as my favorite western bands.
I stumbled across “Take My Hand” only recently. It was originally a reggae, upbeat song, but after listening to it a few times I realized its lyrics can be reinterpreted without being changed and the whole song is a great material for a cover. It also had English lyrics: romantic without being sentimental. I contacted both Tomek Lipinski and Robert Brylewski and asked them if I could do the cover of “Take My Hand” and luckily they agreed.”
Mars Is Heaven is out today on 12 inch vinyl via La Station Radar and Atelier Ciseaux. Recorded this year in Ridgewood, the record comes in a limited edition of 300 copies. Order it here or here.
