We caught up with Aaron Ellis a few weeks back to ask him what he’s been up to lately and ask about his latest album.
RBY: Where did you record it and when, we've been locked down for 5 months
AE: This has been recorded over a couple of years here and there what I've been doing is just getting a load of ideas down over the last few years, as soon as lock down came it is just like oh, what am I going to say now you don't have any more work to do really rather than like focus on like the stuff I was doing with the bands or th
e new solo stuff. I'd like loads of stuff there that I'd just started and left you started and left kind of thing and it's all of a similar vibe really like I feel like the last five years I lost three members of my family including my mum off the back of all that I been coming up with this stuff thats a bit more introspective and a bit more darker than my normal stuff I will switch on bits of that anyway on some of the sounds switched on anyway a little more like Jammier stuff for and this was all a bit more about finality and stuff like that soon and I thought I might use this opportunity in the house to focus on these to get them out the way and try to put them as a collection of a similar similar vibe and a lot more like instrumental and different flavours from my travels from going round the world over time
RBY: Still with lots of rhythmic influences?
AE: yeah there's just like stuff on there that's influenced by Latin like to go to Cuba and from the far East and also some stuff from Morocco like the Berber stuff from North Africa like Tinariwen it was just like trying to get them all together and to move on from it to me because they were hanging around on my shoulder and I just wanted to put them in a box kind of thing and move on from there.
RBY: Without limiting you to genre's would you still say you're still in the psych area or you think you move in a bit different now?
AE: I’ve always been psych I've been doing psych since I was about 15 generally so I was quite lucky you know when I first started Yeah, I've been lucky enough to have played with a lot of interesting people like you know from the from day one Ozzy out of the Fernweigh like, bands that I was playing with? You might know Dave Ferguson the drummer out of SSS so they were in my first couple of bands and going to Psych gigs like Timeshard and Return of the Natives and Zeb were pretty psychedelic at first so we've seen all that and I just thought that was just like a normal. You go see a band and they jam for 10 minutes kind of thing, that's the normal for me and that what I've missed and that why I've got a band together to be a bit more improvised. The psychedelic instrumental phases in its tracks is about extending bands playing live and and jamming but to jam live when you reach that gear it starts rising.
RBY: Have you ever been one for a three minute song?
AE: I do that as well but what I call psycho-dellia is more about pushing, pushing the envelope, I might not want jangling guitars or trippy vocals, or synths or an organ on it, it's more about what am I doing with this time signature and how am I changing it and how am I changing this song structure to could break the mould to me that's psychedelia thats what I grew up on with the 60s psychedelia
AE: When you get to the studio, you have these ideas, are you actually jamming when you record them or is it prescribed?
AE: Some of it is and a lot of it was like just coming up with it more like an emotional angle so it's a little bit more difficult than the way I normally work. Normally I'd come up with an idea and write a song, I'd write the parts, I'd jam with the band in an instrumental phase with this it was more like about catching a mood.
RBY: Do you want to go through some of the songs on the album?
AE: The track it kicks off with this is one of were I got the vibe for the album ready like the first track called the beginning of the end which had this sound to it which is a lot more electronic based compared to the previous album. It had this dark atmosphere to it, totally different from the song based stuff. I like playing the synths creating sounds. That set the albums tone. There’s only one vocal track on the album and itches from a more personal place with a different way of projecting as normally I’d sing. There’s unusual effects on the voice that I wouldn’t normally do, I’ve got a clear voice and try not to fuck with it too much. I just got this effects crystalline effect from an Eventide H3000 and was just playing with it, which was what this albums all about, and that suddenly it oh, that sounds different.
RBY: Did you put this album together during Lockdown and is it mainly yourself doing it?
AE: Yeah, its all me, all those fragments I’ve had knocking around for the last five years I just grouped them together rather than focus on the stuff I was doing with the band. I just worked on those fragments and they became these 11 tracks on the album.
RBY: I it went back to normal tomorrow would you be doing this live with the band.
AE: This is solo stuff yeah we've got too much to do and I’ve got more solo stuff I want to crack on with and I’m writing some of the best stuff that I've ever written really at the moment. I’ll probably call it something else or under just Aaron Ellis name. The bands more of a separate entity and what we were touching on before lockdown was moving towards improvisation and time changes to keep it interesting. You’ve got to keep it fresh. We’ve continued to rehearse with the three that can and its sounding boss, a bit more up tempo, still with that opportunity for jamming out which is the whole point.
If we are playing out of town and we’ve only got a half hours set we cut the songs down to the bar bones of what they are to suit the place we’re playing or the audience we’re playing to. But when we get the opportunity. like when we’re playing the Jacaranda and we’ve got an hour to play we’ve got time for space jams and the like, we keep going then until we think it sounds crap haha.
RBY: What else is on the album?
AE: Repose is a bit more mellow, the BMPs are slower than I’d normally do with the band, no longlines and more laid back.
RBY: Where and how have you been recording?
AE: I’ve kept stuff that’d I’d done in rehearsal rooms and I use a Ableton and Logic on a Mac, I’m old school. I think I was one of the first people in Liverpool to do a MIDI course back in1999 and since then I’ve been able to compose electronically, I’m using it like a tape machine. I tend to play it live with drum machines and get it down as well. I might try this new Lunar programme so I can get out of my old habits, if I can ditch them and get into a new way of working. This is like a learning curve for me.
AE: When I move house I hope to set it all up properly again, it's not fully set up at the moment. I’ve picked up a fair few things from travelling, like in Morocco the North African rhythms and in Cuba everyone seems to dance, you’re like having a bevvy and they are dancing behind you, there’s rhythm everywhere. Got a drum made for me in Africa which got used on the album.
Aarons latest album was released last month, links are below
Words: RBY, Photos: Aaron Ellis media, RBY
Bandcamp: aaronellisliverpool.bandcamp.com
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/aaronellisliverpool