Ballston, Beaver, Butteville, Boring? Anything but!
Oregon is a fine source of inspiration for both toponymic tittering (all four ‘B’s above are real Oregon locations), and also as it turns out for wonderfully wistful elegiac power-Americana.
Arising from her West Coast road-trip back in 2023 multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter Ella Spencer’s latest single release I Never Told You About Oregon combines impressionistic fragments of her experiences there with musings on loss and the impermanence of memory.
Ella’s own down-at-heel-saloon-style-upright piano delivers a haunting Helpless-ish accompaniment to her silky vocal, sitting halfway between the folky flatlands of Suffolk and the gritty South Dakota badlands - resigned-but-impassioned, strong yet with a tiny quaver of vulnerability and with an airy dash of falsetto.
The band join her in an appropriately Youngian easy-going chugging lope, complete with a sunny harmony-laden chorus, layers of guitar textures, noodles, and accents - plus everybody’s favourite ‘quiet bit and return’ for a positively joyous chorus/coda featuring the added voices of ‘the boys in the band’.
I Never Told You About Oregon was recorded this summer at The Panther in Portand, Oregon with co-producers Jerry Jospeh (at whose invitation Ella was there) and Steve Drizos: while the stylistic hand of Mr Joseph particularly (to Plunger’s ears) is evident we had the pleasure of hearing the song live, solo on acoustic guitar just recently and it was every bit as engaging and enchanting as here! I Never Told You About Oregon is the first track to be released from that session so far, on the evidence of this highly accomplished and confident single we can’t wait for the rest of them!
I Never Told You About Oregon is released on Thursday 3rd October, details can be found here: https://ellaspencermusic.com/
A launch gig for the single is at the Green Note in London on the same day.
Ella Spencer: piano/vocals
Jerry Joseph: guitars/backing vocals
Tim Murphy: bass/electric guitar
Steve Drizos: drums/percussion/acoustic guitar/backing vocals
Produced by Steve Drizos and Jerry Joseph
Recorded and Mixed by Steve Drizos at The Panther, Portland, OR
Mastered by Jon Neufeld at Treehouse Mastering, Portland, OR
Photos: Plunger's very own Al Stuart
