Ellis Redefines Her Journey In Debut LP 'Born Again'

The first full-length album from Ellis has arrived after a string of well-received EPs. Born Again, out now from Rough Trade, uses a number of memorable backdrops that suggest the everyday and the mythological, including beds, church pews, cities, forests, and even the cosmic. But as the album title suggests, there's a central theme of transformation that's not always comfortable.

Singer/songwriter Linnea Siggelkow explains:

“I grew up Christian and was quite devoted to faith up through my late teens, but I started challenging that once I got to university. Since then I’ve been trying to redefine who I am and where I stand and what I think about these things on my own, and that journey very much played into the songwriting on this record.” 

Produced by Jake Aron (Snail Mail, Solange, Grizzly Bear) and recorded partly at Aron’s Brooklyn studio, Born Again arrives as the follow-up to Ellis’s debut EP The Fuzz. In a departure from the Dream-Pop of The Fuzz, Born Again is much more melodic and confessional in approach. 

For Ellis, the making of her debut album proved to be incredibly demanding:

“When the record was finished, I didn’t feel how I had anticipated I would. I thought I was going to be feeling excited and fulfilled and proud of myself, but truthfully, I felt very depleted and drained and emptied out. The more I thought about why that was, the more I realized that I really did give this record all of myself, every last bit.

I feel like I’ve found some sort of closure, and a better understanding of all the ways I’ve grown and the things I still have to work on. I rarely sit down with any specific intention when I’m working on music, but if these songs help people to find some comfort or feel less alone in what they’re going through, then that’s really the greatest takeaway I could ever hope for.”