Ellen Birath – Mother of Pearl

She sings motherhood like few artists before her, far from picture-postcard clichés and overly smooth filters. With Mother of Pearl (Goat Rhythm / Musigamy), French-Swedish singer Ellen Birath delivers an EP recorded live with her quartet, in which vocal agility is placed entirely at the service of an intimate, almost diary-like songwriting.

Formed during the pandemic, Ellen Birath‘s quartet has the obvious cohesion of a band built over time. Her voice, tinged with soul, unfolds over a luminous jazz that never seeks to show off for its own sake. What strikes first is the material of the lyrics: five years after Little Ellen (2019), the artist recounts the experience of motherhood without excessive modesty or idealisation – tenderness sits alongside exhaustion, constant vigilance and, often, humour.

The album opens with Little Star, an optimistic ballad that sets the tone straight away: light, but light that has been through something. Next comes Fire at Me, the project’s flagship track, carried by an unhurried groove that leaves all the room for the story – that of everyday life with a newborn, told with amused distance.

Safe Hands marks a change of tone: a soft ballad, it is above all the occasion for Ellen Birath to deploy a sublime expressiveness and interpretation, in which every inflection seems weighed to perfection. The title track, Mother of Pearl, takes the opposite approach with its nostalgic accents – mother-of-pearl as a metaphor, something formed slowly, layer upon layer, far from any urgency.

Blueberry Milk then reminds us that this record isn’t all softness: the phrases here run away with themselves, more animated, showing the singer’s ease in a considerably more demonstrative register – the vocal agility mentioned above finds a fine showcase.

Mother of Pearl is one of those records that never overplays its hand: a voice fully inhabited, a quartet in close complicity, and words that speak of motherhood as it is actually lived rather than as it is imagined. We invite you to continue listening via the player below.

Thank you to Ellen Birath for this work full of honesty.