If I were to say that Elea Calvet reminds me of Tom Waits, would you get what I mean? Would the artist be offended? The answer to both questions may be yes, so I’d better explain what I mean.
Obviously, there are no vocal similarities. In fact, they seem to sit at opposite ends of the spectrum on that score, as they do for age, gender, and certainly in the sartorial department. But, just as Tom has done before her, Elea Calvet has, from the off, clearly indicated that hers is not a pathway through the well-trodden and accessible pastures of fad or fashion and that it is to older, more discerning, and often mercurial sounds that she looks for inspiration.
With “Letter From The Abattoir,” the second single from the forthcoming “Spurious Forms” album, she gathers all manner of unusual sounds around her—a rumbling, DIY backbeat, spacious guitars, harmonious vocal textures, and delicate additional sonic tones. The result is a song that feels adrift from the modern age, more at home in Brechtian theatreland or in the 50s French underground pop scene, something that modern musical metrics can’t even comprehend, let alone measure.
That is why I make such a comparison. Few others have been able to look so far back for inspiration, so far off the beaten track for building blocks and still make music that finds a place, and a significant one at that, in the modern age. Nick Cave is another of these lone sonic explorers. Good company indeed.
Taken together, those two references indicate that Elea Calvet is making music that may or may not be commercially successful, only time will tell, but it will undoubtedly be culturally and artistically important, and isn’t that a far better place to position yourself?
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Spotify
Soundcloud
