Elke

city: New York
country: USA
genre: Alternative
styles: Avant-Garde

Follow Elke on

Spotify Bandcamp @elkemusek congratsrecords.com

on hashbrandnew.com since June 30, 2021

ABOUT THIS ARTIST

Today (July 30th), Nashville based artist ELKE shares new single ‘I Can Help’, and announces her debut album ‘No Pain For Us Here’ due September 24th via Congrats Records.

Part avant-garde art instalment, part beatnik pop-opera, ELKE (real name Kayla Graninger) breezily channels New York’s underground rock scene in the mid-sixties, with flavours of Nico, Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen. It’s also unabashedly modern and innovative in its execution, deftly produced by Kayla’s partner, fellow musician and collaborator, Zac Farro (Halfnoise/Paramore)

New track ‘I Can Help’ follows on from first single ‘Vacuum’, that was praised by the likes of DIY Magazine, The Independent & Hayley Williams herself. Speaking on the track, ELKE adds: “I wrote "I Can Help" as an ode to the somewhat dystopian life we all seem to have accepted as comfortable, myself included. And then how the responsibility always gets dumped on the people who didn’t even create the fundamental issues. Steel drums felt to be an appropriate foundation, and from there Zac and Co. worked their magic to lift up this song in an irresistible way. I’m very proud of this song, it is one of my favorites on the record.”

No Pain For Us Here is a collection of sanguine, dreamy and bohemian tracks spanning her life in New York, L.A. and Nashville. She aimed to break down "barriers of gender roles" with her songs, intoning in a brooding, often unsettling low register inspired by songwriters like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. "Very male-dominated, very male-inspired," she says of her early work. "I thought, 'Why do females have to be [stereotypically] female?'"

In her teenage years, Graninger wasn't so fixated on any particular artistic path. She wrote her first song around her freshman year of high school, drawing on the everyday pain of not getting along with her family. But her love of writing — lyrics, poetry, journaling — became the through line of her life: She had trouble developing any close friendships as a kid, frequently moving across the country from Illinois, Pennsylvania, to a Virginia boarding school to Las Vegas due to her father's job in the casino industry.

At age 17, she made her most pivotal move: heading to New York City and fully immersing herself in music. She found gigs in the city's East Village and Lower East Side — playing under a handful of monikers until she arrived at Elke, the name of her mother & grandmother who had passed before she ever got to meet her.

"When I started adapting my writing into my music as an adult," she says, "rather than just a chick singing other people's songs for them, I knew I had something I could be proud of, and chase to no end."

Graninger signed to Kobalt Records and recorded her debut EP, 2018's ‘Bad Metaphors’, with producer Shawn Everett (The War on Drugs, Local Natives, The Killers), who encouraged her to experiment. Her follow-up EP, 2020's ‘Visitors’, veered into darker folk balladry and synth atmospheres, her voice often pitched at a low rumble, but that project feels tentative compared to her debut EP.

With her new music, ELKE demands attention and sets herself out to be one of the most exciting & esoteric artists of the year.