Ellipsis is a restrained, but very immediate album, with the voice often upfront in the mix, raw and uncompressed, and we even get to hear the guts and moving parts of her piano. Wells is an accomplished musician and melodist too; on 'Carry On', a song about rebirth and overcoming whatever is set before us, her multilayered vocal harmonies burst from the tight mix into an epic choral tapestry created entirely by Wells herself. It's evidence of a singer completely confident in her ability to bestride the entire vocal range but she does it without a superfluous note and its majesty feels entirely appropriate. Indeed, several songs begin with intimately recorded voice and piano which are joined by inventive, exposed and sparse string arrangements that build into compelling, ascending walls of sound - and it's magical. Instrumentation is economical; acoustic guitar, piano, a soupçon of drums (Pascal Consoli), a synth here and there and those ethereal strings, but Wells's ability to weave the modulations of Indian classical singing and the wide use of vocal layering give her an almost limitless musical palette. And she uses it with perfect judgement and economy, understanding when the tension of her songs need to open out into extravagant transcendence; 'The Night' is perhaps the best example of this, a track that is so refined in its arrangement that even a small bass drum double-kick gives the song an understated compulsion.
As if to demonstrate the variety of influences Wells draws upon, 'She makes you feel something' is a
gospel/spiritual ballad with handclaps and a lilting melodic authenticity underpinned by a creamily layered backing vocal. The mystical 'Holy Smoke' is a remarkably evocative folk song about grief and letting go – again with those shimmering, edgy strings (arranged by Maddie Cutter). Wells has spoken of the impact on her musical life of artist like Joni Mitchell, John Martyn, Nick Drake (strongly referenced in 'The Silent One') and Jeff Buckley among others, and whilst one can sense this throughout the album, this is most certainly no pastiche of any of them.
Lyrically, the album is introspective and often very moving, a quality best exemplified by the 'You're alright kid' (a track Mitchell would have been happy to put her name to). To a beguiling, twinkling melody, Wells speaks to a child of its future; 'people do the talking, don't even listen, let them natter like crows on a cable – cos you're alright kid, and you'll be fine', the final line resolving in a blush of strings (arranged by Sally Herbert) and a coda of undulating choral finishing. I defy anybody not to weep a little.
The title track is a blissed out instrumental, with a driving (but soft) kick, tribal drums and Nicki's vocal pyrotechnics floating above it all. But even in this genre, the softness of the closing piano shows restraint. It is easy to imagine a remix for the Ibiza crowd but that would only mess it up.
Some have called this album 'immersive', which with the detail in its recording it certainly is. But what it ultimately stands as is a beautifully crafted, emotional, startlingly accomplished display of songwriting and arranging. Few artists have the talent and ability to perform, produce and engineer and produce a set of songs with such intelligence and self-awareness – anybody else who had such an astonishing vocal facility would no doubt descend into trying, annoying self-indulgence, but Wells, like the finest artists, knows exactly how much of her talents to distill. The last album I recall that was so miraculously crafted, but felt like a punch in the gut, was 2001's 'Someday My Blues Will Cover The Earth' by Her Name is Alive.
"Ellipsis' is a prodigious achievement and is likely to be the most beautiful album you'll hear this year. Wells deserves to have enormous success with it. It has 'classic' written all over it.
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