Celestial and visionary, Ella Thompson is one of Australia’s most dynamic musical talents. Ella is an ardent songwriter, who effortlessly contrasts avant-garde with cinematic soul and funk to produce poetic pop. She creates a steady stream of music, releasing work with her electro-pop duo GL and alt-pop group Dorsal Fins, alongside her captivating solo work.

Ella has toured across the country and recorded relentlessly over the last 10 years. She has fronted, recorded and collaborated with Australian deep-funk pioneers The Bamboos, where her songwriting and vocals were heavily featured on the 2013 ARIA nominated ‘Fever In The Road’. After years of lighting up stages with GL and Dorsal Fins, she was personally invited by Mark Ronson to join his band and accompany him on the Australian leg of his!Uptown Funk!World Tour in 2015, with notable musicians like Kevin Parker, Theophilus London, Andrew Wyatt and many more.

Singing has been Ella’s lifeblood for a long time. She was already making a name for her herself at just 16, touring the country in support of her mentor Renee Geyer, alongside industry heavyweights Paul Kelly and Vika and Linda Bull. Inspired by the greats (Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Brandy, Etta James and Donny Hathaway) her high school band, then Ella and the Dynamic Groove, featured the likes of The Teskey Brothers.

After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2013, Ella went on write and record her debut album in Janus, which was released in 2015 and named the Triple R album of the week. Like Janus, named after the two-faced Roman deity of beginnings and duality, Ella’s music signals both the future and the past, taking on influences of heroes Kaitlyn Aurelia-Smith, Renee Geyer and Moses Sumney.

Always one to push the boundaries, in 2017 Ella was commissioned by the Melbourne Recital Centre to create a large-scale performance work entitled Like Running Water, to be performed as part of Melbourne Festival in the Elisabeth Murdoch hall. This innovative show featured collaborations with musicians Sui Zhen, Clio Renner and a string quartet. The performance was accompanied by visuals from artists Prue Stent and Honey Long. These works went on to form 2018’s Hysteria.

A notable chapter in Ella’s musical life is her acclaimed collaboration with Graeme Pogson, who together conceived GL. The internationally recognised duo is known for their irresistible, theatrical and dreamy live shows, which have transfixed audiences at festivals such as Splendour In The Grass, Falls, Meredith and Laneway, along with their headline shows both in Australia and across the UK and Europe. Tapping into their extensive history in music creation, both as teenagers and in a wide variety of bands throughout the years, GL has quickly established itself at the forefront of an Australian electronic explosion. Since forming in 2013, their sound is constantly evolving, treading a fine line between urgent, drum-driven funk and soaring, blissed out vocals. 2020 saw the release of their second album ‘You Read My Mind’ where influences coalesce to form GL’s distinctive sound. The album’s relaxed creation process translates into an explosion of funk and soul, with shimmering lighthearted moments interspersed between slightly weightier grooves.

Ella’s other formative group project Dorsal Fins, comprised of a motley crew of Melbourne’s finest band members, has gone on to receive a broad listenership and high rotation on radio stations such as Triple J since forming in 2015. Now, 5 years on from their much loved record ‘Digital Zodiac’, Melbourne’s ‘cult pop-mystiques’ are back after an extended stay in the musical wilderness. 2022 saw Dorsal Fins release their third studio album ‘Star of the Show’. Rising from the Hope/Ovens Street studio mile of Brunswick, the Fins have recently peeled back from the epic cast of 9 mates, entrusting the band’s songwriting trinity, Liam McGorry, and co-vocalists Ella Thompson and Jarrad Brown, to navigate a kaleidoscopic bag of sun soaked horns, love-puddle funk and brat-pop night moves. This record saw Ella explore some of her most personal writing to date with songs like ‘Sister’ which speaks of solidarity.

Ella now returns to her soul roots and releasing music under her own name with a brand new EP ‘Cocoon/Dawn’, a dreamy collection of contemporary soul songs featuring both studio versions and live recordings. The EP’s three studio cuts were produced in Ella’s home studio in collaboration with multi instrumentalist Liam McGorry and the EP also includes two live recordings by Ella’s brand new band, recorded at the Melbourne Recital Centre. The two approaches form a cohesive whole and the EP showcases Ella’s iconic soul informed voice and her considerable songwriting talents. 

The EP opens with recent single ‘Cool Down My Heart’, an uplifting soul/pop track which has garnered attention from BBC, NPR, Double J, RRR, 2SER, PBS and Bandcamp. The lush ‘Lost’ follows, ethereal yet still capturing the classic soul horns and guitar chanks synonymous with the genre. A head nodding bassline introduces us to ‘Shining Star’, a funky downtempo tune which showcases rich harmonies and an ear worm of a chorus. All three studio cuts feature Hudson Whitlock on drums, Will Morrisey on saxophone and John Castle, Ella’s longtime collaborator on mix duties. The first of the live recordings, ‘Love In Lunacy’ has a distinctive 70’s soul/jazz flavour with warm and woody bass tones, glittering synthesizers, and an extended saxophone solo.

The live ‘Cocoon/Dawn’ rounds out the EP, beginning with percussion and wistful horn section, the vocal harmonies are a highlight here as well as the incredible elasticity of Ella’s soaring voice. Listeners can get a taste for the full spectrum of Ella’s live band in a suite of beautifully shot videos from the Melbourne Recital Centre performance on Youtube. Alongside her extensive discography and live performance career, Ella is a passionate educator. She enjoys working with music students across all ages and abilities fostering creative curiosity and individuality. Ella is an associate lecturer at Monash University at The Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance and several local schools.