When beautiful melody, compassion and a real depth of purpose combine, the result is music like this. the third single from Kate Ellis’s forthcoming new album takes us on a journey into the natural world, exploring our connection to the environment: the awe it inspires, what we draw from it and the risk we pose to it. The message is disarmingly simple when Ellis sings: “Every inch of me is shaking // To see the beauty that we’re breaking // Wonderland,” and the fragility of our wonderful world is exposed. THis is a celebration of our emotional connection to nature and a call for change.
Yorgo Lykouria’s video is creatively sensitive and visually stunning. It captures the collaboration between Ellis and contemporary artist Geraldine van Heemstra of the Wilderness Art Collective. Together, they aim to shake us from our lethargy in regard to environmental issues and inspire change. Throughout the video, Geraldine van Heemstra’s art is the focus. She spent a day capturing nature in watercolour paintings. It’s a joy to see these emerging in the pages of her sketchbook interpersed with footage of Ellis performing in those same inspiring locations. Ellis explains the song’s meaning: “‘Wonderland’ is about how perceiving nature in a viscerally connected way gives us a deeper appreciation of it and a deeper sense of loss for what we’re putting at risk. Geraldine’s artwork is the perfect visual expression of the song.” Geraldine continues: “My work is inspired by intangibility and emotion in the shape, sound, and movement of the natural world. What attracted me immediately to this collaboration is how Kate’s beautiful music communicates the powerful emotional connection we have to nature. We are both responding instinctively to changing colours and patterns of the intangible natural world that is speaking through us in different mediums.” There is a beautiful moment at the end of the video when the pages of the sketchbook are revealed.
Many non-profit sustainability organisations are sharing the song through social media and it will be shown as part of the Cop-26 United Nations Global Media Network in its environmental content for global broadcast media. Find out more about The Wonderland Project here.
Look out for the new album from Kate Ellis, ‘Spirals’, due next year. Produced by John Reynolds (Sinead O’Connor, Indigo Girls), it promises to deliver more of Kate Ellis’s tuneful, heartfelt, sensitive Americana. Check it out.
