Ella Raphael is blessed with an amazing voice, filled with warmth and emotion; it’s engaging, like an old friend telling tales and spinning stories. Mad Sometimes is her debut album, release via Fire Records.

Brought up in London, surrounded by sound, listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Etta James, while encountering Queen, The Beatles and the Stones from her Dad’s collection, Ella’s musical journey continued in Australia where she met many other musicians, and ended up sailing with would-be pirates, singing in the bow of their boat and deciding that music was the path for her. Charmed by the music she has discovered on further travels across the US and Europe, she refined that eclectic mix, adding Love, Serge Gainsbourg, Karen Dalton, Vashti Bunyan, Catherine Riberio And Alpes, the original masters of Tropicalia, exotic 50s guitars and the more esoteric sounds of The Beatles.

Writing outdoors, freedom has always been a virtue to Ella, penning songs that are at once aching and brittle, then elated and celebratory; she has perfected a sound that’s as wide-ranging as her influences and experiences, music that’s as beautiful as its surroundings, using the intricacies and subtle nuances of sound to channel both light and dark into her music.

On her first LP, the sound comes from a stylish mix of lap steel, mandolin, guiro, congas, synthesisers, a shruti box and stringed instruments played by Ella, Eyal Samson, Uzi Ramirez, Ron Ephrati, Guy Mintus and Amir Sadot.