Emerging artist ELDR announces her sophomore EP 'HÖLY STRANGER' alongside new single and video for 'Friends', out January 19th
After the release of her stunning single ‘Spinning Tops’ in October last year, emerging artist & award-winning composer, ELDR, has now returned to announce the details behind her eagerly-awaited new EP ‘HÖLY STRANGER’, showcased by the new offering ‘Friends’.
Following her critically-praised debut EP ‘Defender’ in 2019, which also received the PRS Women Make Music fund, ‘HÖLY STRANGER’ looks to continue the broad and ethereal guise she first introduced herself with. Channelling her raw and adventurous approach to production and songwriting, her newest collection looks to add the next vibrant chapter in her ever-growing catalogue, cementing her as one of the more exciting new names emerging right now.
Her newest effort ‘Friends’ stands as a perfect reflection of what we can expect on the new EP. With its warm live energy, and her own powerful voice soaring atop a bed of distorted guitar and driving drums, she is looking to pursue larger captivating tones this time around, adding breadth and levity to her aesthetic throughout.
The latest offering also comes accompanied by a stunning new video, shot by Miles Ridgway (Arlo Parks) and directed by Philip James McGoldrick. The new visuals perfectly demonstrate the unique world-building aesthetic ELDR has been cultivating since her earliest origins. With its rich and powerful imagery, we are beginning to see a full sense of where she plans to take us on her next absorbing journey.
Speaking about the video, ELDR said, "The ‘FRIENDS’ music video is a dystopian sci-fi meets spiritual orgy! It explores a yearning for intimacy and the sanitised detachment from our own humanity caused by recent things like social distancing. The main characters begin trapped in themselves, masked and dressed in hazmat suits. My character is intended to be a kind of ‘alien swan’ who activates them with music, inviting them to become more feral and free.”
‘HÖLY STRANGER’ Track listing:
1. Weak Potion
2. Spinning Tops
3. Friends
4. Headstone
As a scholar from the National Film & Television School, ELDR has since gone on to compose award-winning scores and soundtracks for the likes of BBC, Sky Arts, BFI, and Film4, and recently the soundtrack for Poly Styrene: I AM A CLICHÉ, which just won ‘Best Documentary’ at the British Independent Film Awards and the ‘Raindance Discovery Award’, as well as being nominated for a Scottish BAFTA.
After beginning with her first project White Russia, she found herself in the midst of the commercial music machine. She found the experience confined and restrictive, unable to truly express herself and forced her to take a step back into pursuit of something more organic. This is when she formed ELDR, a broad and euphoric exercise that sees her channel the energy of acts such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, Daughter and Bjork, while also giving her work a more cinematic approach.
ELDR is a representation of her most honest and untethered self. Emerging from an occultist background, which went on to lead her down the darkest paths of organised religion, she has since rejected much of those beliefs but still finds artistic inspiration in their rituals. These principle guides in her life have allowed her to see that there are always two sides to all of us, both in darkness and in light, forming the basis of what she wanted the ELDR project to focus on; a vehicle to promote self-acceptance and empowerment.
After releasing her debut EP ‘Defender’ in 2019, she gave birth to her first child. Finding herself in lockdown with a newborn, unable to perform live, she began visually recording her experiences of motherhood. With many commenting that family and a career in the music industry are incompatible, it became a necessity to show those that this wasn’t the case, and so ELDR:TV was born, a DIY reality series about music making and motherhood.
ELDR is now more than just her latest guise, it is the truest interpretation of who she really is. No longer dealing with the insecurities and pain of her past, she has a renewed and more positive vision, sharing an honest and authentic look at herself and the world through her captivating music.
DISCOVER ELDR
WEBSITE INSTAGRAM | SOUNDCLOUD | YOUTUBE | SPOTIFY | SOUNDTRACKS | ELDR:TV