Graded on a Curve:
Ela Stiles,
Ela Stiles

The self-titled debut solo LP of Australia’s Ela Stiles is a brutally concise, consistently interesting and fleetingly beautiful a-cappella affair. Available on her home turf for a few months now, it’s freshly out all over the globe via Fire Records’ nifty distribution deal with the appealing Down Under imprint Bedroom Suck. Even those possessing knowledge of the singer’s prior work in the groups Songs and Bushwalking will likely find Ela Stiles intriguing, for the highly eclectic contents rise to the level of agreeably arcane.

It didn’t take long for Ela Stiles to bring the output of certain very specific artists into this writer’s mind. Since she doesn’t sound like any of them it is safe to assume that none actually serve as an influence on her new record. One was an assumption, or better put it was a conclusion prematurely drawn. The other two surfaced after hearing; both help to illuminate an album that can initially be somewhat baffling.

Reading about the a-cappella nature of this LP and the capsule description of Stiles as an indie artist caused me to quickly, indeed lazily, think of the vocals-only work of Petra Haden (Imaginaryland, Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out, the majority of Petra Goes to the Movies). It took one spin to realize the error. To elaborate, Haden can be described as striving for the maximal in a stripped-down setting; using just the human voice, she frequently crafts seamless reproductions of instrument-laden and even lavish material.

By contrast, the six pieces comprising the first side of Ela Stiles are minimal to the extreme. Utterly lacking in the superfluous, four of the selections clock in at a minute or less, her layered vocals exuding a folk ambiance and specifically the sound of captured field recordings. This element is only enhanced by the brevity of the tracks, almost as if an ethnomusicologist was diligently cataloguing sources with a tape machine and absolutely no interest in embellishment.

That’s the sonic territory opener “Kumbh Mela” explores, at least at the beginning. The longest of side one’s songs, its first segment delivers a single captivatingly spare voice (unfolding like a performance obtained in a deserted one room schoolhouse), though in less than a minute it undergoes a sharp change, offering studio-built harmony that’s far more contemporary.

While ultimately quite different, the development displayed by “Kumbh Mela” (the title references a Hindu pilgrimage that millions undertake every three years) is not necessarily out of line with Stiles’ earlier stuff. And the next cut “Untitled Drone” moves considerably further out, but its 57 seconds aren’t irreconcilable with the more texturally expansive qualities found on First Time and No Enter, the two full-lengths issued by Bushwalking.

Strains recognizable as vocalizing shift and rapidly surge into a thickening, less taggable sound-field and then rapidly subside. Just as the ear is getting acclimated to this detour into experimentation, “Untitled Drone” is done, and yet it doesn’t feel undernourished. The following piece “Untitled Man” finds Stiles returning to folkish mode, again containing multi-tracked harmonies and for the first time a touch of the Celtic; while not significantly longer than the previous entry (20 seconds, to be exact) the result is greater due to its being so fully-formed.

A sweet yet edgy tune, “Untitled Man” is perhaps comparable to something Alan Lomax might’ve dreamt while running a high fever. Even prettier is “Anything,” the achy purity conjuring visions of a young Irish woman singing a song of ancestors long gone. This is followed by the lament “Legs Won’t Bend,” Stiles’ “lead” voice accompanied by swirling wordless backup that stands in for instrumentation; it could easily be replaced by wind instruments as diverse as bagpipes and didgeridoo.

Surely drone-worthy, “Legs Won’t Bend” and side-one’s gorgeous but exceedingly brief coda “Nothing Remains” reinforce Ela Stiles as a good fit for partisans of experimentation. Recorded and mixed in one weekend with Jack Farley at Transient Studios in Melbourne, these six tracks tally less than eight minutes, their succinct individual completeness combining into a satisfying if esoteric totality.

This LP doesn’t match it in qualitative terms, but after a few listens I started thinking about the Minutemen’s terrific and sometimes underrated ’81 debut The Punch Line. Yes, numerous obvious differences between the one-woman experimental leaning a-cappella folk of Stiles and the spastic, Wiry political punk rock of the three-man Pedro gang may have some readers scratching their pates, but they do share intelligence and resonance that’s derived from an unwavering economy.

That is to say Ela Stiles’ A-side doesn’t inspire disappointment but rather instills curiosity and accordingly the desire to continue exploration of the record. And the flip’s 11 minute side-long piece “Drone Transition,” self-recorded and then layered with more vocal, taped this time by John Duncan, a gentlemen described in Fire’s promo lit as “a brickie/labourer who records strictly one project a year,” does provide a suitable extension, but in earning its title it also serves as a considerable departure.

Not completely, though. The bolder experimentalism that defines “Drone Transition” was apparent before, particularly on “Untitled Drone,” and the expanded track additionally employs the folk traits that largely characterize the first side. Obviously there are distinct facets; for starters, the folk tones unite with the extended techniques to broaden a sense of mysticism.

But if increasingly tense and plainly drone-infused, it also isn’t The Theater of Eternal Music. Stiles’ singing flirts with a pop sensibility here; if the six previous cuts can inspire images of a fragile lass immortalized on a Folkways disc, her inflection on “Drone Transition” reminds me a tad of early Sinéad O’Connor and in fact comes attached to lushness that definitely conjures the late 1980’s. Adding a bland loping synthetic rhythm could’ve produced a dangerous result.

In how it sharply differs from what preceded it, “Drone Transition” completes a truly unique album, but it does recall another very short LP wielding extreme range, namely the ’66 debut of experimental vocalist Patty Waters. But as in the earlier comparison with The Punch Line, Ela Stiles doesn’t attain the heights of Patty Waters Sings. All three offer intrigue, but after decades of existence the Minutemen and Waters remain galvanizing. Once familiarity was established, Stiles’ effort became pleasant and even relaxing.

That might be exactly what she intended, and maybe the undeniably hefty associations are unwarranted, though the links seem appropriate at least in detailing overall impact. Ela Stiles is likeable, an attribute unusual and welcome enough in the experimental milieu. It inspires hope that she will persist on this path and with a decided enlargement, one not of duration but of intensity.

GRADED ON A CURVE:
B

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