Ebony Bones Goes It Alone on Long-Awaited Debut

Had Ebony Bones listened to label execs and recorded with big-name producers, her debut album might have wound up sounding like the "beige" radio pop she so despises. Instead, the eccentric Londoner opted to go it alone, a decision that yielded the vibrant, genre-busting 'Bone of My Bones,' due out this spring.

"I don't believe in democracy when it comes to music," Bones tells Spinner. A former child actress who counts Prince and the Clash among her greatest influences, Bones has been on the verge of stardom since 2008, when she started playing shows across Europe and the United States. With her outrageous costumes and anything-goes musical aesthetic, she's earned comparisons to everyone from Kate Bush to Karen O. Despite the hype, 'Bone of My Bones' has been slow to surface, at least outside of Japan, where it's been available since the summer.

"I was very determined not to rush into anything," Bones says. "There was obviously a lot of buzz, and lot of people wanted me to work with certain producers. I was very keen to carve out my own sound. I knew I would have to produce and write the material myself in order to achieve that."

She did just that, hunkering down in London and recording 'Bone of My Bones' largely on her own. The self-taught multi-instrumentalist says she enlisted sidemen only when songs required guitar lines or other tweaks that proved beyond her abilities.

"I go into the studio, literally, with an engineer, and that's it," she says. "So there's no one to ask, 'What do you think?' I really wanted to rely on my own opinion for my sense of sanity within the tracks."

Left to her own devices, Bones tossed together sounds however she saw fit, happily stamping her sonic passport in all corners of the globe.

The album is stuffed with chanted vocals, hip-hop and electronic beats, disco and punk guitars and shrieking whistles, among other sounds. If the sound is radio-friendly -- the '1984'-inspired dance-pop gem 'We Know All About U' was a hit on the BBC's Radio 1 -- Bones says it's a happy accident, one of those rare instances where the mainstream picks up on something not manufactured by record companies.

"There's nothing worse than when people create things and they think, 'This is what I should do in order to be loved,'" she says. "You've got to be honest with yourself, otherwise there's really no point."