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?