Our Man In The Field

“I think of Our Man In The Field as kind of a character and not really even me,” says Ellis. “Something like a Jack Kerouac or an Albert Camus. A writer and a correspondent, a roving reporter but more like a TV version in the ‘70s; Hunter S Thompson but less guns and LSD. Mostly, I don’t want the listener to think about the songs as being mine or about me, it’s more about the story and the characters in there. They’re always about real people and hopefully that makes them relatable.”   “Last Dance,” the first single to be released from Gold On the Horizon, harkens to the sonic aesthetic of early Johnny Flynn and Ondara while Ellis sings of friends who went through a traumatic breakup. In the song, one romantic partner asks for a quiet departure from the relationship (“If you’re leaving in the morning / Go before the sun comes up”) while the other requests another chance at redemption (“If you’re leaving in the morning / Can I have one last dance”). The emotional push and pull is offset by the band’s bright, upbeat, sophisticated indie-folk feel, crafted by a country fiddle melody, groovy backbeat, oscillating synth line, and Ellis’s warm and comforting vocal timbre.