Ellison

Before Ellison play a note, someone knocks at a door, footsteps approach, and the door creaks open. The same door closes at the end of the record. Between the two are seven songs of heavy blues, hard rock and dark early psych from a Montreal band that made one album and broke up in 1973.

Issued on Supreme (SR 2900) and distributed by Trans-World, Ellison is among the rarest Canadian rock albums of the early 1970s and a cornerstone of the country's underground hard rock collector canon. A near mint original is valued at around $2,000 USD.

Ellison began in Montreal in late 1967, when vocalist and guitarist Vincent Marandola and his childhood friend, bassist Richard Arcand, formed a trio called Jimmy Peace. In 1969 they replaced their original drummer with Robert Cager, added Christian Vaeillant on second guitar, and became Ellison. The band was managed by Jean-Claude Brosseau, who also led l'Association des Orchestres, a collective behind Quebec's underground rock, blues and hard rock acts. Ellison played often in and around Montreal, took gigs elsewhere in Quebec, and by 1971 were drawing crowds on the college circuit.

Ellison cut their only album at Studio Six, Chuck Gray's studio on St-Antoine Street in Montreal, with engineer Quentin Meek and producers Alexandre Dumas and Yves Hamel. Marandola wrote or co-wrote all seven songs, with Arcand sharing credit on 'Satanic' and 'Strawberry Rain' and the whole band on 'Unchanged World.' Twins Marie-Claire and Richard Séguin sing on 'Freedom,' a year before their own debut as Les Séguin. The LP came out in 1972 (some sources give 1971) with little distribution behind it. Ellison played their last known show in Montreal on March 31, 1973. Richard Arcand died in 1997, and Vincent Marandola later settled in Sainte-Dorothée, Quebec.

The playing is raw and physical, with forceful guitars, muscular bass, hard-hitting drums and Marandola's direct, impassioned vocals. The attack recalls earlier Canadian groups such as The Ugly Ducklings, The Haunted and The Sinners, but Ellison push further into the dark, heavy territory of proto-metal and underground heavy psych, and the band sounds like it is playing live in the room.

Collectors caught on early, and bootleggers followed. Black Rose Records put out an unofficial CD in Germany in 1995, and white-label vinyl copies bearing the Supreme name have circulated in Europe, one of them a numbered run of 300. The first proper reissues arrived in 1999, a gatefold LP on World In Sound in Europe and an LP on Void in the United States. Gear Fab Records issued the album on CD in 2000 with liner notes and photos from Vincent Marandola, misprinting track five as 'Strawberry Pain' along the way. Spain's Guerssen reissued the LP under licence from Gear Fab in 2016. In May 2026 Guerssen issued it again (GUESS289), this time from new digital vinyl transfers by Robert Williston, after the label decided it was not satisfied with the audio master used for the 2016 edition. The 2026 pressing thanks Clark Faville, Ashley Johnson and the Museum of Canadian Music / CitizenFreak.com for the use of their original LPs.

Notes: Christian Vaeillant is credited as Christian Tremblay on the original album and in Vincent Marandola's liner notes. Some sources spell Robert Cager's surname Cayer and call the first trio Johnny Peace; this biography follows Marandola's notes on both.

-Robert Williston

Lineup:
Vincent Marandola: vocals, guitar
Christian Tremblay: acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Richard Arcand: bass
Robert Cager: drums
Marie-Claire Séguin: vocals on ‘Freedom’
Richard Séguin: vocals on ‘Freedom’