No matter how complex life is, a simple song can shine the light on it. The darkest places become seen, the hidden surfaced so you can’t pull your eyes away. It takes something special to make you feel that combination of chills down your spine and a sense of unease as a song unfolds – or unravels.
elie zoé has the ability to force you to confront uncomfortable feelings and also has the chops to salve the wounds, often in the same track. Their debut, recorded in 2015 and released the following year, Dead-End Tape, is an accomplished set of songs from this French-speaking Swiss artist. They have surely been listening to PJ Harvey’s earliest EP. Additional echoes of early Radiohead, rivulets of Soccer Mommy – and yet without the angsty layers of the latter, or the ‘progestations’ of the former. It’s a gem, one that comes with talons which hook into you.
The opener, My Shadow On The Wall, is so stripped back, it’s all metronome and plucked acoustic guitar. Many of their songs don’t even get that complicated. But punch above the weight of their compositional lightness they most certainly do.
There are shadows here, though. Something unsaid, or that cannot be brought forth. Like a stutter. Or the hiding of scars. Looking back from recent events related to their name and pronoun changes (you should read about what led to those changes here) perhaps it was always in plain sight, or perhaps it’s discolouring the brightness a little – because there is a lot of brightness here, once the contrast is reduced. On The River it is the tinkling bells towards the end of the track; on Hold Me Tight, it’s the fast pace of the music pulling against the relative slow release of the lyrics.
And there is also a ruggedness, something shaped by harsher elements. This is first heard in Chop Me Up and resolves itself in the final track, It’s Only Me on a Dead-End Tape. And yet, in that first touch of heaviness on Chop… are angelic vocals that soar above the grumble of the staccato guitar riff. It’s fucking catchy, too. Especially as the fluctuating cadence in response to those rising vocal lines.
It’s affecting music without the affectations you might expect of the darker brooding tones, though. That’s the simplicity making itself known. Perhaps it’s the youthfulness of the artist just needing to get their songs down, to relieve themselves of the burden of these words and their accompanying music? This urgency is present in I Found A Girl, which is a poignant moment when considered against the backdrop of elie’s recent transition, but also a point on the album when tempos change even as the early intensity is never relinquished.
On Last Night We Talked, we actually get to hear a softer side to elie’s output, which continues into I Cried in My Beard – although there is discordance in the chord changes and finger-picked strings. Again, I think of PJ Harvey, but this time I would reference White Chalk rather than Dry. Lines are repeated as poetic undercurrents beneath their voice and the harmonies they have created with overdubbed vocals.
Just as we reach the final chapter on this album, so listeners are rewarded with some further experimentation, using backward recording techniques and simple synth melodies as the scaffold for Do You Still Sing. It’s a track that could be played out at the end of a dark thriller, or to accompany the reading of a disturbing graphic novel. It’s glitchy in places, but the voice is almost sweet. Almost. The repetition of the song title keeps the level of malevolence high enough to make you shudder, yet with that shiver of excitement a good ‘scare’ can give.
And so, with the final two tracks, Zara and It’s Only Me on a Dead-End Tape, so the album concludes. The songs slow down again, yet that intensity previously mentioned rachets up somehow! It’s like turning over the final page on an engrossing novel only to be left dangling by an unforeseen cliffhanger which can only be resolved by skipping back to the beginning and reliving every second of every moment. If that sounds like you’ll be left unfulfilled, it’s not true. The detuning slowdown-speed-up warp of elie’s guitar on that final song adds purpose. It’s slippery, like emotions.
You will be changed by these eleven songs. It is absolutely impossible to listen and not have this album leave its mark on you.