Triumph & Sadness: vintage soul, modern heartache
Some records want to make you dance. Others want to make you cry into your drink. Ella Thompson’s Triumph & Sadness would rather do both, preferably with a brass section standing by and absolutely no judgement whatsoever.
The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter has made a career out of embracing life’s beautifully inconvenient contradictions, and her latest LP might just be her most compelling statement yet. Ten songs steeped in vintage sweet soul, wrapped in analogue warmth and delivered with the sort of emotional honesty that makes pretending you’re fine feel like a complete waste of time.
Recorded over four days in rural Victoria, largely direct-to-tape, Triumph & Sadness captures the unmistakable warmth of musicians playing together rather than assembling a record one perfectly sanitised fragment at a time. Written alongside Liam McGorry of Temporary Blessings, featuring musicians from Surprise Chef and Karate Boogaloo, and mixed by Wayne Gordon, the album feels wonderfully alive.
Triumph & Sadness, released on October, 16 via Mr Bongo & College of Knowledge Records
Thompson’s influences are hardly hiding in the bushes. Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield and Australian soul legend Renée Geyer all loom somewhere in the background, but this isn’t another nostalgia exercise in vintage soul cosplay. Thompson understands that the genre’s real magic was never about the old-school production tricks. It was about making complicated feelings sound gloriously human.
Musically, the album is a treat. Lush backing vocals, warm horns, organic arrangements and Thompson’s wonderfully expressive voice create a timeless atmosphere without ever feeling trapped in the past. Occasionally, the vintage palette plays things a little too comfortably, but the songwriting consistently brings enough personality to keep the whole affair engaging.
Ultimately, Triumph & Sadness is a record about feeling everything, even when doing so becomes decidedly inconvenient. Thompson makes vulnerability sound less like a weakness and more like a rather necessary survival skill.
In a world seemingly determined to numb us into submission, that feels like a pretty decent reason to press play.
Lyrics_ Beloved
All the pretty, nice things
I don’t wanna spend
My time chasing
Superficialities
I’m free to choose
But with what I want to spend my time, where I belong
Anytime that you call me
Float high on a daydream
I’m ready to sing
Ia la
Baby, love, when you hold me
Night and day
Can’t ignore it
Oh
Your, Beloved
Our love is a free thing
Can’t buy that easy
For you have my attention
Night till the morning
Sometimes we got the pressures of living
Trust me, I’m never far
Bring me back to where you are
Anytime that you call mе
Float high on a daydream
I’m ready to sing
You’re minе
Baby, love, when you hold me
Night and day
Can’t ignore it
Oh
Your, Beloved
Beloved
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