Ella
A Journey Beyond

The girl who resolutely grips the microphone in the black and white archival video is originally from the Klang Valley of Selangor, Malaysia.

Norzila binti Haji Aminuddin is her name, but she's known as Ella. With a single exception, all her songs are written in Malay. The exoticism of her origin (Penang, Malaysia) should not overly complicate the classification of the singer or the band (in the first 4 albums, the name was Ella and The Boys): Ella produces for EMI music and is a rockstar in her home country. To be precise, called the "Ratu Rock" ("Queen of Rock") or also "Rock Diva of Indonesia, the Malay Archipelago, and Asia"; active since 1985 until today, she has sold almost one and a half million copies of her albums in her homeland and neighboring countries (Singapore, Sumatra, Indonesia...).

From the interesting original formula based on a raw hard rock-voice mix to today, one can see how the biography of the Asian rock-singer reproduces and proposes again the geography of the spread of success and the evolution of the very flexible stylistic geometry; from cult band for clubs to a possible future projection on Western or (considering the geographical proximity) South Pacific (Australia, New Zealand) and Japanese networks, with inevitable "programmed" evolution of cut-up. Starting with the language. Besides, Ella was the first Malaysian artist to record an entire album in the USA (title: Ella USA) and there are rumors of her returning to the States. Which is an absolutely normal fact, and lately even more frequent. What draws more interest is that she is an author and performer halfway between heavy metal and pop, with a beautiful voice, powerful, rasping, "rock" just right, penetrating (Babes In Toyland might be a remotely comparable term), feminine and seductive according to stylistic (and aesthetic: Ella is a local pop icon) needs, achieving interpretatively the challenging task (considering the background) of blending an indomitable folk-pop substrate with expressive modules linked to more traditional heavy metal, now distinctly melodic and forged in the form of a slow ballad, now placed on a rhythmic scan that fans of the genre appreciate(d) more.

If "Suara Semalam" recalls the Maiden of the Bruce Dickinson period, the slower tracks like "Gemilang" or "Pengemis Cinta" bring to mind the Scorpions of "When The Smoke Is Going Down" or "Still Loving You" or in other respects the Blind Guardian of tracks like "Don't Talk To Strangers"; the female voice inserted in the context of a hard/metal sound (in the slowness and melodic grandeur of certain episodes) can open a window towards Evanescence (metal side) or Garbage (pop side): the local hit "Rama Rama" ("Butterfly") might remind one of Amy Lee's band in live performances and Shirley Manson's in the more polished studio version; Arabesque and played on funk inflections "Kau Tiada Guanti" is even an eccentric episode akin to RHCP. The influences on which the vocalist and band have formed are evident, and equally evident are the current limits of a somewhat "naive" approach (which need not necessarily be a negative factor); a bit less evident but perhaps latent and identifiable through a careful look are the potentials: the singing is the main strength, the musicians are up to the material and the songwriting skills sufficiently evolved.

The Westernization process has already begun, both with the "EL" collection of 2007 (featuring Slash and Guns’n Roses, in separate episodes), and in the single "Standing In The Eyes Of The World" (the only English piece) performed at the 1998 International Commonwealth Games. From the local star system to the possible discovery of the new name suitable for export, the path is not/will not be easy, but certainly, it can be shorter than before. Thanks also to the new paths of globalization processes. Based on the standardization of tastes. Globalized, indeed, and therefore more interesting, just as the frayed and (fortunately) imperfect edges of such global processes are.

By ’πνοςphere boy ©