Our Man In The Field, the musical pseudonym of British singer/songwriter Alex Ellis, has announced a new album, Gold on the Horizon, to be released on November 3 (PRE-ORDER HERE). The 11-song release is a collection of life observations and the urge to explore their universal meanings through Ellis’s fly-on-the-wall, tuneful alter-persona.
“I think of Our Man In The Field as kind of a character and not really even me,” says Ellis. “Something like a Jack Kerouac or an Albert Camus. A writer and a correspondent, a roving reporter but more like a TV version in the ‘70s; Hunter S. Thompson but less guns and LSD. Mostly, I don’t want the listener to think about the songs as being mine or about me, it’s more about the story and the characters in there. They’re always about real people and hopefully that makes them relatable.”
“Last Dance,” the first single to be released from Gold on the Horizon, harkens to the sonic aesthetic of early Johnny Flynn and Ondara while Ellis sings of friends who went through a traumatic breakup. In the song, one romantic partner asks for a quiet departure from the relationship (“If you’re leaving in the morning / Go before the sun comes up”) while the other requests another chance at redemption (“If you’re leaving in the morning / Can I have one last dance”). The emotional push and pull is offset by the band’s bright, upbeat, sophisticated indie-folk feel, crafted by a country fiddle melody, groovy backbeat, oscillating synth line, and Ellis’s warm and comforting vocal timbre. Listen to “Last Dance” HERE.
Our Man In The Field is the result of a mid-life epiphany. In 2014, Ellis found himself in the hospital under observation for intense abdominal pains. Tests were conducted and a tumor was discovered; further worrying, as a similar growth led to his father’s death in his 40s. As Ellis awaited treatment, he reflected on his dad’s life – hard work in a job he didn’t like, with no ability to enjoy the fruits of his labor before he passed – and realized he needed to make some changes to avoid the same fate.
Until then, Ellis had been an actor – landing commercials and other gigs to keep him afloat until the next audition, but never catapulting him to a fulfilling life in the profession. Paired with a particularly denigrating commercial acting role, the health scare begged the question – What do you want to do? And what Ellis thought of most while bored and anxious in the hospital bed wasn’t the auditions or commercial gigs, but playing his guitar and the freedom and expression of songwriting. Upon his discharge and subsequent recovery, he began writing and slowly creating his aesthetic and sonic identity.
Produced and mixed by Tucker Martine (Modest Mouse, Rosanne Cash, case/lang/veirs), Gold on the Horizon was recorded in December 2021 at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, OR. The album features 11 songs that range from the raw and barren in “Come Back To Me” – which showcases Ellis’s soulful vocal harmonies and a sparse arrangement of acoustic guitar and pedal steel – to the spacious mirror ball slow-dance of “Go Easy,” and a full and striding desert noir feel of horns, backup vocals, and baritone guitar through the album opener “Feel Good.” What informs Ellis and Gold on the Horizon is a lifetime of inspiration and the creative space to “wait for something magical to happen.”
“The music is probably the result of listening to a lot of my parents’ records when I was a kid: The Eagles, John Denver, The Carpenters, Van Morrison,” says Ellis. “Then, when I was first buying my own stuff from that guy on Redcar beach; Paul Weller, Ocean Colour Scene, REM, The Bluetones, and then going through the inevitable Dylan phase and the ongoing Neil Young/Credence obsession.”
Ellis plans to tour around the release of Gold on the Horizon with performance dates to be announced in the near future. To be the first to know about shows, new music, exclusive items, and intimate correspondence from Our Man In The Field, subscribe to “The Field Report” Substack HERE.
For press information about Our Man In The Field, please contact
Karen Wiessen or Jim Flammia at All Eyes Media