Video premiere: Elle Belle, ‘Straight as an Arrow’

1
Elle Belle (Photo by Casey Curry)
Elle Belle (Photo by Casey Curry)

It’s not that Elle Belle’s “Straight as an Arrow” (or its stare-down video featuring mastermind Christopher Pappas and Jared Ainscough’s effects) is by itself going to change your life, although it might make you understandably curious about Pappas’ recent fetish for face-painting. But the song, a tender ballad, is important as a waystation on the aptly titled “Wako Gumbo,” the Elle Belle debut album out today via Pierre de Reeder’s Little Record Company.

On “Wako Gumbo,” Pappas empties his creative cupboard over a heart-rending, jaw-dropping, unfailingly catchy 20 tracks that span 68 minutes with scarcely a moment of filler. Pappas’ past exploits in the Everyday Visuals and Miracle Parade left no doubt he could write songs — that he could cover this much territory and do it virtually on his own (he made the album in his Los Feliz studio apartment) nearly qualifies as another miracle in his parade.

The singer-songwriter displays his command of almost all strains of classic rock, and the variants that followed. Psychedelic pop revivalists will want to high-five him. Pappas nods to straight-outta-the-’80s New Wave and also the contemporary alt-pop and synth-rock it has inspired; he detours into prog-rock (“Full of Polaroids”) and the theatricality of glam (“Stranger of the Times”); and he even nails a drum-n-bass excursion (“Rain in London,” which features guests Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius). All those styles provide sturdy vehicles for the dozens of internal conversations and roller-coaster emotions Pappas must have had in conceiving the record. “I’ve been listening to voices,” he sings, druggy, in the song of that title. On “Wako Gumbo,” he found a brilliant way to channel them.

||| Watch: The video for “Straight As an Arrow”

||| Also: Watch the video for “Knock on the Light”

||| Previously: Live at Resident, “Knock on the Light,” “Failed Dreamz”

||| Also: Stream the whole album via Spotify