There's something about Edmonton-born and Toronto-based songwriter Ella Coyes's voice that feels like a flag in an ardent breeze. On their latest release as Sister Ray, the short and blistering Teeth EP, their voice is so wide and refined — quivering like a familiar hymn — that it feels like something important is being revealed. And that's because it is.
The follow-up to their much acclaimed debut — the deceptively sweet, almost incendiary Communion — Teeth marks a moment of development, functioning almost as a barometer of growth as it hints toward an existentially monumental reckoning for the singer-songwriter. With Teeth, Coyes delineates an integral shift on two grounds: ideological and technical. As the EP marks that ephemeral-as-a-shooting-star moment of growth for the artist, that exact moment when their art becomes more complex and textured, it also registers a crucial developmental moment, one that sees Coyes become more comfortably reified and authentic in themselves. In other words, don't be fooled by its bite-sized form — Teeth is weighty as a storm-leaden cloud.
The EP, produced by Joe Manzoli and Jon Nellen of ginla, is composed of three original tracks written by Coyes over the course of five days, and capped off with a reimagining of Linda Ronstadt's "I Never Will Marry." Coyes said of the title track that it is inspired by the almost crumbling of a once-steady and vividly-registered understanding of the world; in other words, a kind of loss. And indeed, the track — not to mention much of the EP — is insistent as it laments. But there's also something strident about Coyes's heartache, an awareness that rings through all the subsequent tracks, even "I Never Will Marry."
It's an awareness that rings with clarity that blooms in one's muscles; it's tough to describe with words. Coyes communicates it in the way they sing "disguising bad habits" on "Teeth"; it's present in the heaviness with which they sing "You wouldn't come to my defense," or "Look at your hands," or in the placement of the "but" in the chorus: "Say it's juice from the berries / But my belly's been the colour of a late summer cherry between teeth." Coyes sings with a sweet realization of the constancy of self within a whirling world, as people and ideas and even chimerical notions of ourselves flitter past us. Hazy notions of externalities may certainly pass us by, but at the end of the day, we remain with ourselves, Coyes seems to realize — we remain responsible for ourselves, have to come to feel at home in and come to terms with our desires and disdains.
Teeth is a reckoning with the epistemologically negative and painful work of shrugging off old ways of thinking, but also a jubilance in the realization that this work is accompanied by the positive task of finding a new way of being, of experiencing growth. It's a coming to terms with the self that comes through on "All Dogs Go to Heaven." In a voice fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird, Coyes sings "I guess I'll never really know," and then with a grounded comfort they continue: "But I choose to believe / That all dogs go to heaven." It's a heartbreaking and steadying realization that once it strikes, will never be forgotten, because it contains a responsibility for the self, the onus to remedy or fix or double-down on aspects of ourselves as they collide with the world. Old ways of thinking might be lost, Coyes seems to suggest, but there is strength here, a control and mastery of skill to be salvaged. One must persist despite how defunct or disappointing old memories have become.
There's a spiritual aura to Teeth — not fanatic but calm, a sense of assuredness borne of Coyes revelatory voice. Compared to Communion, Teeth is rugged, containing a more nebulous sound that isn't just more evolved but also more complex and controlled in its raw, near-experimental nonconformity, shirking off of traditional and intuitively familiar tonal/sonic forms and comfortable lyrical arrangements. The confidence in being unruly as one comes into being is best exemplified by the way Coyes warps and warbles "I Never Will Marry," taking Ronstadt's country twang and turning it into something almost Gothic, imbuing it with an unwavering ghost, unflinching as it countenances you and utters "I intend to live single for the rest of my life."
"I'm sitting in silence, / You're always moving in my memory," Coyes croons on "Pressing Down," a track like an intentional massaging of a bruise. Their voice aches but also feels warm as a blanket, full of compassion for the self as it allows the option to sit in silence at all. Coyes seems to know that this is how healing is possible, through this space creation, a focus on being with the self. Teeth certainly rings tragic as it speaks to a loss of something precious, but there's also something brave and strong on this EP that speaks to a positive freedom, that exciting chapter in life where, free from past fetters, one is free to do anything at all.
(Royal Mountain Records)The follow-up to their much acclaimed debut — the deceptively sweet, almost incendiary Communion — Teeth marks a moment of development, functioning almost as a barometer of growth as it hints toward an existentially monumental reckoning for the singer-songwriter. With Teeth, Coyes delineates an integral shift on two grounds: ideological and technical. As the EP marks that ephemeral-as-a-shooting-star moment of growth for the artist, that exact moment when their art becomes more complex and textured, it also registers a crucial developmental moment, one that sees Coyes become more comfortably reified and authentic in themselves. In other words, don't be fooled by its bite-sized form — Teeth is weighty as a storm-leaden cloud.
The EP, produced by Joe Manzoli and Jon Nellen of ginla, is composed of three original tracks written by Coyes over the course of five days, and capped off with a reimagining of Linda Ronstadt's "I Never Will Marry." Coyes said of the title track that it is inspired by the almost crumbling of a once-steady and vividly-registered understanding of the world; in other words, a kind of loss. And indeed, the track — not to mention much of the EP — is insistent as it laments. But there's also something strident about Coyes's heartache, an awareness that rings through all the subsequent tracks, even "I Never Will Marry."
It's an awareness that rings with clarity that blooms in one's muscles; it's tough to describe with words. Coyes communicates it in the way they sing "disguising bad habits" on "Teeth"; it's present in the heaviness with which they sing "You wouldn't come to my defense," or "Look at your hands," or in the placement of the "but" in the chorus: "Say it's juice from the berries / But my belly's been the colour of a late summer cherry between teeth." Coyes sings with a sweet realization of the constancy of self within a whirling world, as people and ideas and even chimerical notions of ourselves flitter past us. Hazy notions of externalities may certainly pass us by, but at the end of the day, we remain with ourselves, Coyes seems to realize — we remain responsible for ourselves, have to come to feel at home in and come to terms with our desires and disdains.
Teeth is a reckoning with the epistemologically negative and painful work of shrugging off old ways of thinking, but also a jubilance in the realization that this work is accompanied by the positive task of finding a new way of being, of experiencing growth. It's a coming to terms with the self that comes through on "All Dogs Go to Heaven." In a voice fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird, Coyes sings "I guess I'll never really know," and then with a grounded comfort they continue: "But I choose to believe / That all dogs go to heaven." It's a heartbreaking and steadying realization that once it strikes, will never be forgotten, because it contains a responsibility for the self, the onus to remedy or fix or double-down on aspects of ourselves as they collide with the world. Old ways of thinking might be lost, Coyes seems to suggest, but there is strength here, a control and mastery of skill to be salvaged. One must persist despite how defunct or disappointing old memories have become.
There's a spiritual aura to Teeth — not fanatic but calm, a sense of assuredness borne of Coyes revelatory voice. Compared to Communion, Teeth is rugged, containing a more nebulous sound that isn't just more evolved but also more complex and controlled in its raw, near-experimental nonconformity, shirking off of traditional and intuitively familiar tonal/sonic forms and comfortable lyrical arrangements. The confidence in being unruly as one comes into being is best exemplified by the way Coyes warps and warbles "I Never Will Marry," taking Ronstadt's country twang and turning it into something almost Gothic, imbuing it with an unwavering ghost, unflinching as it countenances you and utters "I intend to live single for the rest of my life."
"I'm sitting in silence, / You're always moving in my memory," Coyes croons on "Pressing Down," a track like an intentional massaging of a bruise. Their voice aches but also feels warm as a blanket, full of compassion for the self as it allows the option to sit in silence at all. Coyes seems to know that this is how healing is possible, through this space creation, a focus on being with the self. Teeth certainly rings tragic as it speaks to a loss of something precious, but there's also something brave and strong on this EP that speaks to a positive freedom, that exciting chapter in life where, free from past fetters, one is free to do anything at all.