Ella Ronen Hates Cute

Fresh out via Irascible Records / BB*Island comes the new album from Israeli/Swiss singer/songwriter Ella Ronen. Entitled “The Girl With no Skin”, it is her fourth and was produced in upstate New York by Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Alexandra Saviour etc.). An album of remarkable depth and diversity, “The Girl With no Skin” opens with the extraordinary Truth where Ronen wraps the story of herself as a sixteen-year-old suffering a sexual assault by a poet and teacher, and the man’s recent exposure as a predator, in a velvety melody made truly unforgettable by the rich timbre of her alto voice and the “the truth is on its way”-motif. Other highlights are the woodwind-flavoured Rearview, Howl with its sudden, crunching guitar chords, and the liberatingly loud Fuck Cute (“I’m tired of cute, cute has never ever served me”).

Ella Ronen describes herself as a songwriter, singer, mother, and feminist. Growing up in Tel Aviv, she decided to dedicate her life to music soon after completing her obligatory army service at age 21. By the time she released her first album, “Mirror Maze” (2014), she was also studying French and English literature in Lausanne. Dividing her time between Tel Aviv and Switzerland, she sung her next collection, “Toska” (2014), in Hebrew before returning to English with “Motherland” (2021). Today, Ronen lives in Zurich with her two children and is a co-founder of the feminist Mino Collective, with Brandy Butler and Sarah Palin, which aims to carry on “the historical fight for visbility and equality for women, LGTQIA and people of color”.

Ella Ronen
Irascible Records
BB*Island