Release date: 01/03/2010 Digital release date: 01/03/2010 Label: Polydor
Releases debut album ‘Lights’ on March 1st
“The new sweetheart of British pop” The Guardian
“A powerfully potent mix” The Sunday Times Culture
“Nothing less than pop dynamite” The Telegraph
“She’s the real deal” Evening Standard
“Faultless, spectral electro-pop” The Times
Ellie Goulding will release her debut album ‘Lights’ on March 1st on Polydor Records.
The 22 year old Hereford-born singer songwriter was first brought to public attention when she appeared on Later with Jools Holland in November last year, prior to the release of her first single. With her unique blend of folk influences and electronica she was already a firm favourite amongst tastemakers and bloggers alike, but it was this stunning early appearance that brought her to the fore. In December she was named winner of the Brits Critics Choice Award which she’ll collect live on stage on February 16th. It was then announced she had topped the hugely influential BBC Sound of 2010 list.
‘Lights’ features ten tracks, including debut single ‘Under The Sheets’ and new single ‘Starry Eyed’, which is released on February 22nd. Her chief collaborator is Fin Dow-Smith, aka the electro-don Starsmith, who produced the majority of the songs on the album and co-wrote four of them. The two hooked up originally through MySpace whilst Ellie was studying drama at the University of Kent, and something between them clicked. “When Fin came along it was like we were brother and sister,” she says. “Though I write on guitar, I hear the entire sound of songs in my head. And Fin is someone who understands, who can really help me make that sound.” Most of the album was recorded in Fin’s bedroom in Bromley. Another key influence on her sound was Frankmusik, who produced the track ‘Wish I Stayed’.
Ellie’s songs are built around big proper tunes that lift you up and spin you round, yet there’s something off-centre about them, something sparkly, filmic, haunting, odd. She mixes heartfelt emotion with other-wordly atmospherics, spins cool electronica into dreamy warmth. Her insistence on putting her guitar in every song, whether an acoustic cover (she’s done amazing versions of Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead, Wolves by Bon Iver and Roscoe by Midlake) or a gorgeous song about new love, gives her soaring electro-folk an earthed rootedness.
Ellie is rapidly gaining a reputation for her impressive live performances, with four star reviews appearing in The Telegraph, Independent, Times, Guardian and Evening Standard amongst others. In March she plays her first headline tour of the UK, with a London date at Heaven on 15th April. She has just announced further dates in June including Shepherds Bush Empire on 9th June.
www.myspace.com/elliegoulding