Eleanor Tallie

Singer-songwriter Eleanor Tallie's debut single "Promised Land" is an inspiring number that fuses new soul, jazz, hip-hop and alternative RnB styles. For an artist to take bits and elements from those varying genres and create such a unique groove while maintaining it's underlying essence is no easy task but Tallie delivers it effortlessly from start to finish. Armed with commanding yet soothing vocals, this track is a splendid performance that exudes her positive outlook on life.
"…If the glove don't fit the hand….why pretend you understand...? she sings on the hook. Making use of the promised land analogy, she aims to motivate the listener to accept change as progression rather than an obstacle.
Eleanor Tallie's foray into music started at a very young age in Isreal when she began writing her own music and she proceeded to study classical music for 15 years. She began really honing in on her own sound in 2015 – a sound she defines as neo-funk: a mixture of funk, neo-soul, RnB, jam, jazz and hip-hop elements
"Promised Land" is Eleanor's first single off her forthcoming project, due out in 2018.

Read more at https://earmilk.com/2017/11/09/eleanor-tallie-takes-us-to-the-promised-land-with-debut-single/#it73W6cmFHJM1IiE.99 - EARMILK

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Eleanor Tallie delivers a groove reminiscent of the late legend Teena Marie in the form of a new single called “Promised Land.” The seminal record was penned about a failed relationship, but Eleanor’s deep and layered approach gives various depictions including issues in America’s social and political climates.
“If the glove don’t fit the hand… why pretend you understand?” she strikes. “Afraid of a change… you might just find the promise land.”
“‘Promised Land’ is an expression, describing that sense of peace in relationships with others, and with ourselves.
The song was written in retrospect about a relationship gone wrong, and the conclusions and new hopes that grew from it,” Eleanor tells Singersroom. “Musically, ‘Promised Land’ has a sound I’ve been dreaming and working to create since I started my solo project in 2016.”


Read more: https://singersroom.com/content/2017-11-02/premiere-eleanor-tallie-promised-land/#ixzz4yTdW3Wgi
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Soul and funk music are the predominant influences on Eleanor Tallie’s debut EP No Turning Back, but the most important aspect is the groove. Regardless of genre, Tallie has drafted aid from some top flight musicians capable of thoroughly inhabiting an arrangement with feel and almost metronomic dependability.

Tallie comes off as a veteran performer and young prodigy. She makes decisions regarding phrasing and placement that belies her young age while still infusing every syllable with unmistakable vitality. The production keeps everything warm and balanced but renders the instruments and vocal performances with remarkable fidelity.

The six songs on No Turning Back don’t really break any new musical ground, per se, but illustrate the timelessness of the forms by delivering indelible performances with a maximum of polish and style.

Hell or Heaven opens the EP with special guest Lil Riah joining Tallie. Riah’s inclusion is memorable, but Tallie and her band completely dominate the listener’s attention thanks to the quality of their respective performances. Tallie exhibits unsurprising good sense and veteran performing instincts by weaving her vocal into the arrangement rather than singing over it. Brass, light keyboards, and gloriously syncopated drumming give additional flair to the song.

I Tried nods to Tallie’s funk influences, but this is largely an intensely groove-oriented soul number hinging on a melodic central riff. The keyboards, bass, and guitar double each other on that main figure and it makes for an impressive sound. Tallie’s vocal is quite the pyrotechnic display of phrasing heard on the opener, but it’s still quite good.

Sunlight brings Lil Riah back for a final guest shot and relies on backing and harmony vocals more so than any song before or after. Unlike I Tried, there’s no light nod towards her funk influences. Instead, Tallie brings the proverbial house down with a deeply soulful performance capable of moving all but the most cynical.

My Present is mid-tempo funk with a bite and chops to burn. There’s no question that Tallie chose her collaborators well for this project – any listener would be hard pressed, particularly on songs like My Present, to find a single misplaced note. It’s one of Tallie’s best vocals thanks to the wide emotive range she inhabits.

If duration equals importance, the penultimate track Gotta Be Happy is the centerpiece of No Turning Back. The guitar plays a much more important role in the arrangement than we’ve heard on earlier songs while the bass stays tastefully busy providing occasional flashes of lower-register counterpoint. It’s another vocal gem from Tallie that shows her patience in developing an atmospheric and emotionally expansive interpretation.

The EP’s final song has a surprisingly raucous edge that takes a closer spin towards rock music than anywhere else on the release. Tallie’s far too nuanced as a performer and composer, however, to make things unduly obvious for the listener. A Real Man is much more about dynamics and defiance. There’s a feistiness heard in the lyrics and percolating just beneath the music’s surface. It’s a bracing, though moody, ending to one of the best, fully-rounded debuts in recent memory.

9 out of 10 stars - Indie Music Reviews

Eleanor Tallie’s Israeli upbringing and classical musical training isn’t the usual pedigree for a soul singer, but Tallie isn’t your usual pop performer. Her debut EP No Turning Back introduces the world to much more than just a great singer – her songwriting skills and talents as a multi-instrumentalist set her far apart from many of her peers. Tallie relocated to the United States in 2013, settled in the Memphis area, and launched her American career with 180 live performances across 30 states during an 18 month time span. When the time came to enter the recording studio and capitalize on that hard work, Tallie enlisted Grammy winning engineer and producer Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell to help realize her creative vision.

URL: http://eleanortallie.jimdo.com/

There’s a strong emphasis on groove throughout the EP. This is apparent from the first few seconds of the release’s first track “Hell or Heaven”. The drums lay down an assertive backbeat before the song begins properly swinging, but things truly take off when Tallie’s voice comes in. “I Tried” immediately sinks its hooks into listeners thanks to the loping, instantly memorable figure the song opens with. The keyboards are soon joined by duplicating guitar lines before the band joins in full. Tallie and the musicians never loosen their tight grip on the groove and the song memorably crescendos in a number of places. Another strength of the first two songs that bears mentioning is the lyrical quality. Tallie won’t be mistaken for Bob Dylan, but she has a distinctly literary style and finds an ideal balance between concrete detail and generalities.

Tallie tempers the mood and pace on “Sunlight”. Groove is still a priority, but there’s a stronger awareness of atmospheric possibilities here than anywhere before on the release. She fills every line with a full investment in every word. The superb musicianship of her players gets another spotlight workout on the playfully slinky “My Present”. The rhythm section confidently moves while never surrendering an inch of ground and the guitar work flashes over top with the same breezy self-assurance. Clocking in at nearly seven minutes, “Gotta Be Happy” is easily the EP’s most expansive musical excursion, but it’s arguably the most laid back as well. Once again, atmosphere ranks every bit as high in importance as the groove, but the true highlight of the song is Tallie’s extraordinarily sensitive singing. She glides through each passage with a fire simmering just below the surface of every syllable. The extended length feels wholly appropriate thanks to the constant melodic flair that Tallie and her collaborators bring to their performance.

No Turning Back concludes with “A Real Man”, a rumbling, riff-oriented surprise. Keyboards and understated guitar carry the riff while the rhythm section doubles their parts with brief, occasional flourishes. One of the many good qualities present in Tallie’s singing is how she tackles each song. Unlike many performers, Tallie never attempts to dominate each song. You can hear how she came up through the professional ranks in the way she clearly sings with the instruments, tailoring her vocals to follow their direction, and No Turning Back’s last song illustrates that quality better than any other track. This is a powerful debut that spares no effort attempting to bowl over listeners and succeeds doing so.

9 out of 10 stars.

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/no-turning-back-ep/id1080693560

Jason Hillenburg - Skope Magazine

Unlikely journeys often make for the very best music. Few journeys, superficially, seem as interesting as Eleanor Tallie’s. This young Israeli born performer grew up in a highly musical family, received a first class classical music education, and showed signs of the creativity we’re now witnessing at a very early age. However, probably few could have predicted that she would gravitate towards blues and soul music. 2011 saw her professional debut when she joined an internationally touring blues band and served as its lead vocalist and songwriter. She moved to the United States in 2013 and made the Memphis, Tennessee area her home. This relocation gave her the needed springboard for introducing herself to American audiences and she performed one hundred and eighty shows across the nation over the next eighteen months.

She began work on her debut recording in the spring of 2015. Defining her sound as “neo-funk”, Tallie is actually mining a fairly common field that’s closer to an anagram of various influences. Soul, blues, and funk all find their way into her music but, moreover, there’s a strong singer/songwriter aesthetic that turns the songs in intelligent, lyrically adroit ways. Tallie has, likewise, enlisted help from some top notch collaborators. The EP’s opening song, “Hell or Heaven”, features important vocal contributions from Lil Riah, but the unquestioned vocal star of the show remains Tallie. The opener proves her voice is a remarkably elastic instrument that she’s able to do anything she wants with without ever losing the emotive edge that puts it over the top. The lyrical content never gets too complex to the point of inaccessibility, but she brings a surprisingly literary flair to the songwriting. “I Tried”, like many of the EP’s tracks, has a very live sound thanks in no small part to its opener. The groove bobs and weaves throughout the song’s duration and Tallie does an excellent job of filling the spaces and wrapping her vocals around the fluid rhythm section work.

Lil Riah returns as a collaborator on the EP’s third song, “Sunlight”. The song’s more evidence of Tallie’s direct and uncomplicated eloquence and its lyrical quality mixed with her uber-distinctive voice enhances its emotional depth. “Sunlight” is much more firmly in the soul genre camp than the EP’s earlier tracks, but Tallie’s collaborators never play with anything less than consummate skill. “My Present” is a feisty, funk-flavored delight. Tallie fires her voice up with a lot of bite and defiance – much of the EP’s positivity comes from the fact that these songs, at their hearts, are about never giving up and moving on towards the distant horizon. “Gotta Be Happy” revisits her soul music leanings and demonstrates the same commitment to maintaining a strong groove.

The EP’s last track “A Real Man” isn’t some romantic, dreamy invocation of Tallie’s yearning, but instead a final grittily soulful cut that ends No Turning Back on a groovy and emphatic note. Eleanor Tallie establishes herself as one of the premier blossoming talents on the indie music scene today.

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEm39Q5ZlSVCRFc9KCLXXA?sub_confirmation=1 - Vents Magazine