Singles Spotlight:
Elanor Moss –
“Fixer”

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I’m excited to discuss another singer-songwriter who is creating some great music a bit under the radar to many. This Singles Spotlight edition features London, UK-based folk singer-songwriter, Elanor Moss. I know if you’ve seen her first name spelled, you’ve probably seen it with an additional e included. But it is also spelled as above. The most famous examples that I’m aware of can be found right here in the Tolkien universe.

Her bio states, “Elanor Moss grew up in a very creative, devoutly Catholic family, and began playing music at church events. Homeschooled through early youth, her parents put a real emphasis on nature and reading and music. Eventually leaving the faith, Moss started writing songs of her own in York as a student of English literature and playing open mics around the city. While at university, she also discovered songwriting greats: Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles. Shortly after graduation, Moss met producer Oli Deakin, who offered to record her first EP, ‘Citrus.’ Her work with Deakin took her to New York City, where she began forging a sense of community. Between ‘Citrus’ and her second EP, ‘Cosmic,’ Moss toured with Christian Lee Hutson, Benjamin Francis Leftwich and LYR, played one-off shows with Cassandra Jenkins, CMAT, and Sam Amidon, and performed at Pitchfork London, Green Man Festival, and Mosely Folk, among others.”

Let’s look at her discography a bit. As mentioned above, Moss released her debut EP, Citrus EP (2022), and followed it with Cosmic EP (2023). Both are worth listening to for Moss’ beautiful, soothing, melancholy vocals amidst fantastic storytelling. You’ll come up with your own adjectives after listening for yourself. Do so after you finish this spotlight.

And on Friday, August 21st, via Merge Records, comes Moss’ full-length album debut, The Knife, The Needle. At SWT, we cannot wait and know that you’ll love the album as well.

Exploring the album creation process in the press release for her album gives us the following information: “Arriving at The Knife, The Needle was itself a complex journey. Moss found herself adrift from her music, pursuing a sound as opposed to occupying the space she had already cultivated for herself. ‘Nothing felt right,’ she recalls, ‘so I took the pressure off myself and tried to calibrate my relationship with songwriting and music.’ The three years she spent writing the songs that make up The Knife, The Needle ultimately found her returning to her roots in and love for, as she puts it, ‘the music that made me really feel something; the music I wanted to be writing.'”

“I spent a lot of time playing the guitar,” she continues. “I borrowed a four-track tape machine and demoed songs on it. I also started therapy again, where I was beginning to unpack my understanding of where I come from, how my family history plays out in the things I do, and how I love and receive love. Out of the slowness and quiet of those rhythms came these songs.”

The album’s press release delves even further, noting, “It’s devastating work, a feat of tight lyrical construction that is at once patient and vulnerable, opulently rendered and keenly felt. Remarkably, it and the rest of The Knife, The Needle emerged from a place of restraint, with Moss — staying in a cabin near her parent’s house in the Scottish highlands after initially recording an entirely different version of the album in New York City (‘a bit rollocking,’ she notes) — feeling the pangs of the album she hadn’t recorded — ‘quieter, weirder, more English.’ Rerecording with a new ensemble and producer/engineer Pete Miles was a risk, but setting aside an already completed project was worth it. In the quieter, weirder, more English sound manifested here, Moss captures something fleeting, ephemeral, and honest about the moments in which love, for good or ill, irrevocably changes someone. Both the knife and the needle named in the album’s title are capable of drawing blood, but illuminated by her voice and guitar, what bleeds out from these songs is nothing short of poetry.” Amen.

Giving credit where it’s due, the song credits:

• Elanor Moss – Guitar & Vocals
• Arrangements by Matthew Herd
• Produced, Mixed & Mastered by Peter Miles
• Matthew Herd – Saxophone
• Marcus Hamblett – Flugel Horn
• Jools Owen – Tenor Horn
• Reid Jenkins – Fiddle
• Andrew Stuart-Buttle – Violin

Eager to listen to the album yet?  Let’s unpack the titular song and the subject of today’s Singles Spotlight. It’s a song that captivated me from the opening notes of the horn that set the tone brilliantly. As the melody evolved, the horns remained a foundation, alongside Moss’ matter-of-fact, soaked-in-sorrow but incredible vocals and songwriting. I think this is the album where more take notice of Moss’ talents and include her in their favorite artists. Rightfully so. And hopefully this song served as their introduction to Moss and the album. Kudos to all involved in this album’s creation.

Looking at the press release one last time and their gorgeous summary, “The Knife, The Needle concerns itself with the way relationships between people are transformed, complicated, and troubled by love… In ‘Fixer,’ which lends the album its title, Moss grapples with the fact that love is as capable of harming someone as it is healing them. Its chorus, ‘Somewhere, deep down / I’m afraid that if you show me the knife / I might use it on you babe’ shifts, first to the thought that the ‘you’ Moss addresses the song to may use it on her, then, stunningly, to the knife could be something else entirely: ‘Maybe what we thought of as a knife / Is just a needle we could use / To stitch the wound?’ she asks, offering at last to reveal where she hurts so long as her partner does the same.”

But take your own word for it. Listen and tell us what you thought.

Enjoy the countryside backdrop within the video for the song “Fixer” from Elanor Moss’ YouTube channel:

(All credits and rights to Elanor Moss)

Before its release, here’s the cover artwork for the album The Knife, The Needle:

The track list for The Knife, The Needle:

1. Fixer
2. Again, My Love
3. Sarah Waiting in the Car
4. Improvisation
5. You Are Coming Home Tonight
6. Secrets of the Universe
7. Clothes in a Hotel Sink
8. Louise
9. The Way That It Feels

Alex M Theel

Co-Founder, Reviewer, Content Creator, Business side, Editor at Scummy Water Tower Productions | Web

Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site, scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions and SWT Interviews. And all of our socials.
Questions, feedback, or more? Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com