In May of last year the artist previously known as Rosalind changed her name to Elanor Moss. A quiet evolution followed. For all that Rosalind had served the Leeds-based songwriter extremely well – a captivating performance of hers that we caught in the midst of lockdown in September 2020 was firm testament to her unquestionable talent – this metamorphosis has certainly seen Elanor Moss’s career move into another dimension.
Looking ahead, she will release her debut EP Citrus on 11th March via self-release; ‘Soundings’, the first single to be taken from the record has already garnered airplay on Radio 6 Music from such luminaries as Guy Garvey, Gideon Coe and Craig Charles. In July she makes her first festival appearance at North Yorkshire’s consistently wonderful Deer Shed. And before that she is out on tour opening for the revered Californian musician Christian Lee Hutson, a man who has routinely collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers.
For the here and now, though, Elanor Moss is back in the city where she previously went to university as one of the support acts for local hero Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Tonight this extensive tour of the UK and Ireland stops off at The Citadel, a building opened by William Booth of the Salvation Army in 1883 and which for the past seven years has been home to York City Church.
The reverence of these surroundings appears to provide Elanor Moss with the perfect ethereal platform for her songs. Here their inherent introspection and reflection acquire a spiritual element, a sense that is magnified through the purity of her voice as it soars through these hallowed chambers. This impact is no more so than on the title song from her forthcoming record with which she concludes her all-too-brief six song set where she seems to project her own liberation from whatever demons she may have previously faced.
Earlier Elanor Moss had opened with ‘Sober’, the first track on the Citrus EP, with her return to York perhaps providing an even greater emotional resonance to the ghosts of these difficult memories. Her cover of Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ – a beautiful, respectful interpretation – serves to amplify the feelings of regret and remembrance that populate many of Moss’s own songs. Yet for all of the sadness and remorse that may lay therein, these are ultimately songs of unflinching honesty and survival.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from this show are HERE
