Zine 27: Elysse
Elysse and I first started talking in August. And in pandemic time, that’s a long roller coaster of a duration. My social life is almost entirely based virtually and yet, every time Elysse would respond - no matter how long had passed - I didn’t need to shake off another convo or cleanse my palette, I was back in the hearth of her introspection immediately. It’s a rare quality, I don’t fully know how to explain it. I have a degree in philosophy, I’ve seen every type of personality based on introspection you can have. And yes, we can all agree philosophy bro’s are the worst. But Elysse’s pondering comes with a unique taste. Her navigation of thoughts is piloted by a comfort that manages not to soften her steam, but rather allows her to delve deeply without becoming bitter. To put it shortly, the bad boys of Ancient Greece would welcome a conversation with her. The singer-songwriter puts poise into curiosity. Her music is as uninhibited as her thoughts. Jazzy reverberation percusses a dreamy trance beat on her latest release ‘Love Again.’ The delicacy of her vocals are like finding the perfect meringue or whipping cream. Where it’s swirled around itself just the right amount. Where the texture seems to be a cloud. Elysse sits atop a cloud made of cream, the shape vaguely reminiscent of something with wings. She’s right next to the man on the moon, and together they look down and watch the intricacies we all seem to float past.
Conversation exchange from the graphics above:
Baby Ballou: I’m gonna start basic, what’re your creative mediums? Is music/songwriting your primary one, (assuming you even have a primary artistry)?
Elysse: Yes! Music is my primary creative medium but I feel like it encompasses so many creative modes. Rhetoric, poetry, even visual elements. I’ve become increasingly aware within the past year that being a recording artist is the most rewarding aspect of music for me. And the term recording artist encompasses songwriting, lyrics, arrangement, production, mixing. I love getting involved in all those details and creating a universe for a listener to step into and explore! Eve is the only song I have up, but I’m going to be releasing a string of new songs this fall aka into Spring!
Baby Ballou: I really love your use of the word rhetoric in that list. I think that’s really interesting word choice. My father’s greatest art is his conversations, and it’s an expression of creativity he passed onto me. Is rhetoric as interaction or connection in your use? Or something else altogether?
Elysse: Love that bit about your father! Ugh, art can be found in everything! Ugh, art can be found in everything! My use of rhetoric is definitely informed by my educational background. I’ve always loved book and brilliant writing and I was an English Lit. major in college. Before I even discovered that I was a creative person (songwriting came belatedly for me), I’ve always been interested in analyzing what makes great art great. I actually got to take a college course taught by the legendary Robert Christgau of Rolling Stone Magazine, which inspired me to further pursue music/culture writing in grad school. So when I say rhetoric, I mean it in a compositional sense: understanding how a piece of art is carefully crafted to produce an intended effect in the listener/viewer/reader.
Baby Ballou: Interesting, higher education is a hot topic so I’m gonna come back to your experience with it but what was the catalyst that made you discover you were a creative? Since you mention there being a pre-era
Elysse: I went to college a few years early, and though I adjusted well socially, I think it gave me a bit of imposter syndrome — the feeling I didn’t quite have as much to say or contribute as those around me. When I got to grad school at NYU, I serendipitously befriended a bunch of juniors who were finally my age, who were musicians, and most importantly, saw themselves as artists. Being around them I began to internalize their approach: taking their everyday experiences and believing that they were significant enough to convert into lyrics, songs, music. I was literally like, “Hey, all these white guys are out here so effortlessly using their lives as valid subjects for their art... if they can, I can try that too.” It helped me overcome a sort of mystique around creative process and emboldened me to experiment with music as a truly personal mode of self-expression. So it was a self-confidence thing, really. My last year of grad school, melodies and lyrics just started coming.
Baby Ballou: I’m intrigued by your catalyst so to say of being “if these white guys can do it confidently, so can I.” Was it just being able to see other people in general creating? Or was it seeing these guys creatively thrive, you felt as a Black creative, it was your time or you had something fresh to say?
Elysse: I mean that I recognized that I was encountering a worldview/lifestyle — an innate sense of self-confidence towards self-expression — that is more accessible and hence prevalent on an intersectional level for whites and males than it is minority women. (I think lots of us can share stories of white men who felt entitled to share their mediocre ideas as if they were God’s gift to the world hahaha.) That’s definitely not to say that if I were hanging with a bunch of minority femmes who wrote music at the time I wouldn’t have also been inspired. And I’m certainly not putting down my friends’ artistic expression. It’s just that my firsthand encounter with such a liberating mindset that these friends of mine were privileged to possess also brought out both a curiosity and a tinge of defiance. I also wanted access to the privilege of feeling like artistic expression was a birthright. And so that exposure helped catalyzed my desire to explore validating my own creative expression.
Baby Ballou: I would like to preface this with the recognition that white privilege I have makes our situations incomparable but that really hit with me and made me think about how a lot of my creative fearlessness comes from just watching my dad play with his creativity. One of our biggest shared art forms is playing court jester to make other people smile, it’s one of my favorite qualities. And I often can be seen as brash because I tell jokes and humor without recognition of the social norms around being femme identifying. I wasn’t thinking he’s a man and I’m a girl, I was just watching him make people laugh and I wanted to too. Ive never fully formed that thought before, how we can be emboldened by watching people who navigate with a different ease. Have you ever struggled or been at odds with artistic expression as a birthright since? Or has it stuck as a core for you. It’s a very striking sentiment that you should definitely put on some merch.
Elysse: I love that you can relate!! Desire is mimetic, so they say. In terms of your question, once I discovered how naturally songs came to me, I never ever went back to questioning my ability to articulately express myself through melodies and lyrics.
Baby Ballou: Wow, that’s beautiful, your love and confidence of your own creativity. Has your sonic aesthetic changed since that initial discovery or did that moment double as you finding your sound?
Elysse: Thank you :) My sonic aesthetic has definitely gotten more refined over time. I can hear it in my voice and as well as in my production sensibilities. It’s been quite an journey getting a grip on figuring out the sounds and tools I want to use to bring my songs to life. The most demanding, most rewarding work ever 😍
Baby Ballou: If you got to use as specific or as abstract words as felt right, how would you describe your music?
Elysse: Cinematic. Expansive yet intimate. Genre-fluid. Thought experiments. Sound journeys.
Baby Ballou: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m getting the sense that ‘all-encompassing exploration’ is a good phrase for how your passion ignites. Does it come from a place of insatiable curiosity or an inner sense of challenge to conquer new things?
Elysse: Wow, you’re so spot on! I think that I just have a love affair with depth. No matter what it is that you can focus on, you can always choose to delve deeper. A sunset, a conversation, a friendship, an art form. The possibilities for exploration are infinite if you are curious and make the intention to hone in. The more you give to the object of your focus, the more it gives back to you. I love art that feels like it’s made from this perspective, that continues to give me something each time I revisit it. So I think I make music from that place — I have an insatiable eye and ear for nuance and detail. The things that listeners might notice the 3rd, 5th, 10th time, but that can be felt immediately
Baby Ballou: Are you currently working on anything? Has creating in quarantine allowed you even more to hone in on subtext and layers?
Elysse: Yes I am! There are a few EPs that I’ve been developing simultaneously. It’s been a silver lining of this time to really hone into songwriting and producing
Baby Ballou: Are there any especially prevalent themes or emotions your in the different projects?
Elysse: I feel like if I had to pick an emotion, the most common through-line would be melancholy. I feel like melancholy hinges on the perception of not quite being completely present in one mental/emotional/spiritual space at once. Straddling a couple worlds without feeling quite like there is an unquestioned home or destination. It may seem like a downer that I feel so at home with this feeling but I honestly believe melancholy is one of the most beautiful and human emotions to experience. We’re all travelers. To acknowledge the beauty in impermanence and uncertainty is not always easy, but always feels worthwhile.
Baby Ballou: Even though I know this isn’t the definition, I’ve always felt like bitter-sweet and melancholy are siblings. They come from that same void in my tongue. Why do you think you feel so at home in a through-line that you describe as not really having a home in it? Do you think melancholy is almost a nomad amongst emotions?
Elysse: Hmmm... It’s a bit of a paradox, isn’t it? The feeling of it stems from the transience of everything, but, as the only constant IS change, melancholy feels like the most grounded state of being among our emotions.
Baby Ballou: Wow yes. The mentality of you know, like holding a routine for months and then realizing it’s not working and deciding to bring about “a change” - that grasping onto this idea that change is structured and comes with purpose at different points of your life rather than embracing that there are small (and large) acts of change constantly in our day to day and our own self development. What’s the last change you were grateful for?
Elysse: The most recent change I’m grateful for has been an internal shift towards acting from inspiration and surrendering to the moment, rather than always being sooo intentional and premeditative about various aspects of art and life. Trusting my intuition and experience to guide me in the moment. It’s an ongoing journey - relinquishing control! For people like me who Luvvv to analyze hahahaha But a rewarding one!
Baby Ballou: Was your decision to release music this year borne of that internal shift to trust your intuition and surrender to the moment?
Elysse: The choice to release my early work this month was really about my realization that I’ve always put art on a pedestal and tried to serve it, but I’ve recently started to realize that art should also serve me. Serve me in that it can provide a chance to truly connect with others and share bits of my journey. Serve me in terms of allowing me to explore and express where I am in a certain stage and help promote the passage into the next. What’s the point of slaving away for years on your songs if nobody’s enjoying it and you aren’t connecting along the way? So releasing my early music was an exercise in self-love
Baby Ballou: It’s also an act of shared love because your music is beautiful and feels kinetic. Love Again was written a while ago but just released, has its meaning or connection to you changed or has its release brought up a lot of the past for you?
Elysse: Why thank you!! I love that word ‘kinetic’! What do you mean by that? It’s funny. It’s the 1st song I ever wrote, back in 2012. And for several years I’d never play it at live shows because I thought it was too... simple. But I think with some distance I began to see how it really was a neat little song for the first thing I wrote. There’s a lovely innocence about it. And interestingly enough, after having ended a relationship this year, I do feel like the lyrics have come full circle for me. I do feel ready to fall in love again! :P
Baby Ballou: Simplicity is sometimes undermined in the industry but it’s where a lot of listeners find a home. I suppose by kinetic, I mean that the movement in your music is palpable. Like toes in a stream. You can feel the push and pull in yourself. I love that it came full circle but even more so that it’s been a part of you moving forward. Last question, simply, are you excited to release more? Find more circles to fill.
Elysse: I’m so excited to release more!! After I release the last two songs from this Preludes project this month, then there’s the new music! No release dates yet! But I’m proud of the breadth and scope of all these new tracks sonically and thematically. My current motto: a song is a universe!!
Follow Elysse on Instagram
Stream Love Again on Spotify