For many, many years now, Annie Ellicott has been opening sonic portals and weaving musical spells across the mics of Tulsa. She’s gone way beyond Tulsa, of course—as a guest singer with Jeff Goldblum and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, a voice actor, and a songwriter—but her persistent explorations here, from the tiniest clubs to the biggest stages, have become an essential, defining element of this place.
For as regular a presence as Ellicott is in Tulsa music, she’s also one of the most surprising. On one night she’ll be doing a set of jazz standards; on another she’ll venture into experimental performance art. I’ll never forget the multimedia show she put together at the old Nightingale Theater to mark the release of her 2016 album Lonesome Goldmine—a wildly innovative evening featuring Magic Mark and Branjae and even yours truly in a supporting role. Her performance as part of David Broome’s “Musical Science Theater” two years ago remains one of my favorite Tulsa music memories.
Ellicott has gathered up a little bit of all of that into a new project called Rubyland—an art rock band featuring Broome, Nicholas Foster, Jordan Hehl, Mark Southerland, Peter Tomshany, and herself—that’s releasing its debut single “Burning Bush” this Saturday, April 11, with a show at Chimera.
“Burning Bush” starts with a ticky little two-note riff, like two sticks being rubbed together, then swerves immediately into something that feels like Artemis II careening around the moon. Ellicott’s jazz modulation keeps the song angling and tilting in different directions, with showers of shouts and shivers of keys playing counterpoint to honey-dipped bass lines and urgent percussion. My Julia Holter / My Brightest Diamond / Grizzly Bear-loving senses were tingling as I listened to this roller-coaster thrill of a single, equal parts heat and sweetness.
At Chimera, with support from the Artists Creative Fund, you can hear “Burning Bush” for the first time, enjoy some themed drinks and noshes, and talk with the band after the show. It promises to be a rich conversation. “In a time of rapid change, the future is full of possibility,” a flyer for Saturday’s event poster states. “Rubyland’s single ‘Burning Bush’ reminds us that this fire doesn't just consume, it sustains. For those who draw near, it lights the path toward a shared vision of a better future.”
In the leadup to the show, I talked with Ellicott about the Rubyland project, the group's process in the studio and onstage, and how music is part of the future she imagines.
AC: What is art rock, anyway? And what itch does it scratch for you as a musician and a person?
AE: Some friends have compared Rubyland to Kate Bush and David Bowie, who are great examples of art rock. For me, art rock is about permission to push limits. It’s where music, theater, improvisation, and art can all participate without needing to resolve into something tidy. The art rock format gives us enough space to hold contradictions like beauty and absurdity, or precision and chaos, without having to choose between them.
How long has Rubyland been evolving, and how did you all start together? You describe it as a “prismatic project”—can you say more about what that means?
Rubyland has been around for a few years with many offshoots going further back in time. It grew out of long-standing creative relationships—people I’ve played with (and who have played with each other). We come from very different musical backgrounds and all have our own strong compositional voice.
The band itself is essentially a collective of songwriters. It’s important to have more than one perspective. When I say “prismatic,” I mean that the project doesn’t resolve into a single identity when you turn it. Each angle reveals something different, but it’s still the same object. One song might feel intimate and minimal, another theatrical and expansive. The prism for me symbolizes a radiant, healthy whole that invites wonder.
What’s it like for you being in the studio and onstage with a full band (of geniuses) like this? Is the process collaborative and improvisational, or are you working with a tight score, or a bit of both?
It’s a bit of both, and that balance adds energy. There’s usually a strong compositional spine. One of us will show up to rehearsal with a new song and some strong general feelings about it, and then we’ll all play around with it for a while until it starts to sound like Rubyland. Because all the musicians in this group are great songwriters, everyone ends up adding something very unique and yummy to the final arrangement.
For this album, we were in the studio with Michael Trepagnier engineering and Scott Bell mixing and producing. I was amazed by how on the same page everyone was while also bringing such unexpected ideas of their own.
Onstage, it’s very sensual and alive. There’s a high degree of listening and feeling and responding in real-time. It’s a freeing, exhilarating, and often wonderfully surprising experience not carrying the entire imaginative load alone.
What does the “better future” look like that the burning bush of this song illuminates? Feel free to answer in as sober or unhinged a fashion as you please.
A better future, to me, is a place where hearts are more permeable to The Other, where connections are deeper and more diverse.
The “burning bush” image holds a paradox, because it’s something that burns without being destroyed. For me, the elements of sustenance are beautiful art, community, human hope and ingenuity, and the evolutionary impulse to survive.
If I let myself be a little unhinged: the better future is one where we can sit in front of something luminous without immediately trying to explain or exploit it, to simply be filled with the warmth and light of it, and then go on about our day changed for the better, in ways we can never measure. And this could be a common occurrence for everyone. No more unusual than eating a meal.
More soberly: a better future looks like small, local gatherings where people really connect with each other. This is, in part, what a Rubyland show offers.
I’ve been hearing these Björk lyrics in my head a lot recently: “State of emergency, how beautiful to be. State of emergency is where I want to be.” I’ve been wondering what the lyrics are trying to tell me, or rather, what I’m trying to tell myself through them. I think it’s that only through the realities of the present do I have a hand in shaping the future I envision.
Do you have an approximate full album release date?
The songs are all in the can, but what I’ve learned from the process of completing the mixing and mastering of “Burning Bush” is that I would like to give this music a little more time to answer the question of pace for itself. I don’t want to hamper any of its beauty.
