Nick Ellis - Adult Fiction - Vinyl & CD Album
"Adult Fiction is a novel set to music. Each song is a chapter based on an old folklore passed on to me by my 105 year old Aunt, Molly Amero, in the last days of her life. It is a story about an architect who built one of Liverpool’s most mystifying and beautiful landmarks, the Princes Road Boulevard, located in the Toxteth Park area."
Nick Ellis, 2017
Adult Fiction is the sophomore album release from songwriter/guitarist Nick Ellis - his third release in the space of two years - following the streetscape narrative-noir debut of Grace & Danger (April 2016) and it’s surrealist-folk follow-up, Daylight Ghosts (November 2016).
The boulevard was special - designed as a sacred place - it was a hub in which it's community could gather and converse. The architect responsible for its design clearly demonstrated a graceful vision of municipal elegance, but there is said to be a deeper, more profound mystery for its inception. His aim was to create a setting so grand that he and his beloved could “waltz upon its boulevard to the sweet music of their romance”. The story took a tragic and unexpected twist, after the premature death of his bride-to-be, thus consigning the architect to forever wander its empty avenues in search of her ghost.
Adult Fiction was recorded in Ellis’ native Liverpool at the historic neo-gothic Adolf Gustav Nordic Church, built in 1884. A masterpiece of Victorian architecture, the church is based in the oldest emigrant corner and mixed community settlement in the city, The Canning Dock area. Once known as the infamous 'Nova Scotia', its densely populated mix of housing, warehouses and docks of 17th century seafaring merchants and mercenaries, is renowned for the millions of sailors from across the globe that set foot upon it’s cobbles.
The album’s recordings took place on a wet and windy day, and its stunning performances signal a development in both composition and instrumentation. Ellis builds on the minimalist solo performances of Grace & Danger and Daylight Ghosts, incorporating weathered and rustic touches of bass, percussion and harmonies, adding body and soul to the artist’s assured narrative. For these elements Ellis enlisted the services of legendary garage-soul wizard Edgar Jones (double bass) and Mark Percy (percussion, backing vocals) of delta blues-literates The Cubical.
The album was launched with a live performance at St Bride’s Church, Liverpool on Saturday 18th November 2016.
ORDER:
Adult Fiction
180-gram Heavyweight Vinyl LP
£18.00 - ORDER HERE
Adult Fiction
CD Digipak
£10.00 - ORDER HERE
PRESS:
"One of the most distinctive and talented voices on Merseyside"
Jenny Lee Summers, BBC Radio Merseyside
"Adult Fiction is a stunning release"
Matt Mead, Louder than War, 'Adult Fiction' review
"Haunting and enthralling"
Steve Kinrade, Penny Black Music, 'Adult Fiction' review
"Adult Fiction is a true Liverpool masterpiece"
Lauren Jones, The Music Manual, 'Adult Fiction' review
"Needle sharp observational lyricism"
Paul Fitzgerald, Getintothis
