Interview: ellipse Debuts New Alias and Talks Transformation, Rebirth, & Sultry “Poison”

ellipse debuts with mesmerising new track, “Poison,” representing a new beginning for the artist as well as a symbolic ode to the past.

Stream: “Poison” – ellipse

ellipse always knew she could never be boxed in.

After falling in love with worlds of sonic escape at a young age, she’s worn many hats when it comes to her music. Becoming involved as a vocalist, DJ, and producer, ellipse now arrives on the pop scene with new track “Poison.”

As a trailblazer in the electronic scene since the ’90s, then-ill-esha had seen paramount success as a touring artist – with several releases under her belt and sets at Coachella, Shambhala and Lightning in a Bottle, she was also featured on Boiler Room in 2017. Despite all this, ellipse recognised that artistry is multi-faceted – and so is she. After years of very successfully orbiting the electronic world, she boldly sheds her past and moves towards the pop genre. ellipse represents a daring fresh slate for the artist, and a blank canvas to map the musings of her new sonic realm.

“Poison” arose after a month spent recording music with the indigenous tribes of the Panamanian jungle. ellipse took heed from the organic vulnerability that peeked through their playful textures and rhythms, and as she says, it was the way they could just be that ultimately inspired her new track. “Poison” was the culmination of the sentiment that “no matter how beautiful your escape destination is, the darkness actually comes from within, and this song is inspired by that revelation.”

Further, the track embodies the transformation ellipse has since embarked on, she brings back raw vocals that hum amidst the sea of synthetic textures and bold outlines. This week, ellipse also drops the accompanying music video for “Poison,” a playful rumination of self-exploration and past selves.

On “Poison,” ellipse shares, “We are always thirsting for the next level, the greener grass, a ‘better place’ than we’re in. Sometimes you can’t escape that darkness when you realize it’s actually coming from inside. It’s only when we embrace and forgive our shadow self that we can move towards the light.”

ellipse sat down with Atwood Magazine to discuss the conception of “Poison.” She discusses change, rebirth, and honest music-making, sharing the inspirations behind the new track and its music video. A disarming vulnerability and stillness drifted seamlessly along our conversation, and I could just tell ellipse’s new journey currently sits at the brink of her transformative catharsis – just waiting to be released to the world.

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:: stream/purchase Poison here ::

:: connect with ellipse here ::

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Stream: “Poison” – ellipse

A CONVERSATION WITH ELLIPSE

ellipse: It’s really exciting! I love that a lot of my old fans are coming with me on this journey, they’re really open-minded about the new music. I’m also just excited to see new people and just be in a different space.

ellipse: So I spend a lot of time every year in the Panamanian jungle recording tribes, and this is a very, very unique opportunity. I got it through a festival called Tribal Gathering. It happens every year, and it’s a charity that supports Indigenous communities. It’s a really big event where we share culture, knowledge and performance. So we had sort of said, there’s so many great cultures represented here, we should have a recording studio. I had been doing that over the last few years, and the flavor of the Caribbean dance halls sunshine really infiltrated me. I’m from this very cold, rainy place — Vancouver. And we have a very strong connection to the UK and I think that’s why this whole project, I feel like, identifies with British influences but the Panamanian part is giving some sunshine and some warmth and some sexy energy. So I think that ‘Poison’ is a really cool mashup of those two energies from my life and who I am, coming together.

ellipse: Yeah, yeah, it’s the fusion. Both light and the shadow, which is this sort of thing throughout the album. It’s like recognizing both sides but embracing them instead of trying to change. So the styles coming together are kind of showing that you can be uptempo and sexy, but you can still be contemplating your own emotional growth.

ellipse: Absolutely. I mean, not just the way they work, but the way they are. They appreciate life for what it is. And I think, in Western culture, we really rush towards these expectations and goals. Being a musician for so many years, it’s really easy to get stuck in this very narrow band of reality — success is metrics, and this is what matters, and this is how you quantify your value. So, being around those people kind of helped me just unroll that and rewind, and go back to a time when I was like, everything is great. Just here right now, just being right?

When I record the tribes, I, of course, capture whatever stories they want to tell me in their own way, and then I invite them to collaborate if they would like to. They’re just so cool. They’re incredibly modern people that are just carrying on ancient traditions and continuing to share knowledge. We record in this very sweaty shed. It’s not fancy — it’s been part of the magic to battle the heat, and loud noises, and the jungle, and the elements basically. But then there’s the backdrop of people from all over the world who are just fascinating, and some of them are super pro with studios and some of them have never recorded before. I think just connecting and making music with people, where sometimes you don’t even speak the same language, you really realize how powerful music is and how much you can communicate without words. And it’s this cliche, but it’s really something I noticed that all the tribes, no matter where they’re from, carry that peace that we just don’t seem to have a lot of the time. That sort of self-examining is what I tend to do. But in this context, I can’t even get too deep in my head, because I’m in the jungle, and it’s hot and there’s people all over the place and my Spanish — it’s okay, but I have to think very hard about it, haha! So I don’t have time to be caught up in my own BS. I could just be. I think musicians, or really anyone, who does something specialized and makes it their life… It’s good to get a perspective reset.

ellipse: Some of it is mental and some of it is technology. Mentally, I’ve grown and changed a lot as an artist. I’ve also become known for certain things, and sometimes people put you in one box and keep you there. I think it’s also just easier because I don’t think I’m abandoning that name. With Ill-Esha I’m still doing sample packs, I do a lot of educational mentorship and other things that the name is still connected to. I think I’m just parking Ill-Esha as the place for it and using ellipse for the deeper, more introspective of my musical journeys. I wanted to be more abstract. I want to experience sonic paintings and just deep art for itself. I think it’s a good point to just make that separation so that people can choose their mood if they want to hang out.

ellipse: It took a long time. The pace of an electronic music artist and touring producer is basically to crank out bangers weekly. So I’m used to making a loose EP every month on the road, but this whole project has taken me maybe five years because it’s been on the sidelines. It’s been in the background. I changed a lot of things about my life, because I realized that I didn’t want to tour all the time and I don’t think it’s sustainable for a lot of people. And I think only now has it become okay to talk about mental health, and now it’s kind of this hot topic for artists. But I think people underestimate touring, like just the sleep deprivation for years alone! It has this really weird effect, and I think as scary as it was, it was an acknowledgment of this metamorphosis. I’m ready to show up for myself, put my health first. And I think that makes my art better in the end. It’s coming from a place of solid transformation and growth and not just peddling frantically to get through every day and to the next gig. I have this peace with music now, and I think that even though it took a long time, it felt quite natural. I think the fact I’m not completely cutting Ill-Esha dead is also helping, I see it more like just two sides of myself — instead of abandoning one thing and making the other me.

ellipse: Yeah, I definitely used to tie everything personally to music and it felt very laborious. Now I just feel like it’s relaxing again, which is how we all start doing the hobby because it makes us feel relaxed and we enjoy it. Again, in Western society we think, you better monetize that you better turn that into something. I just found that music to me became so contrived because I would think about what I wanted to do. And then I would think about what was practical, what was the next step? So it’s a very, very different relationship now where it’s like, no, I’m only making this for me. If it’s the inner me and it’s true, and it’s not based on anything, and it does not follow any obligation. So, I definitely think about that differently now.

ellipse: So it’s 12 songs in total, there’s that whole symbology of a year. The album includes some seasons, some chapters, but ‘Poison’ to me felt the catchiest of the bunch, and also the one I’m the most proud of. It feels like it came together really naturally. Some songs you work on for hours and hours, and others just seem to fly together. This one has definitely changed because I’ve tweaked it every couple of years, but the core idea just poured out of me at one point. It’s a magic that you feel you have to share, and that should be the first introduction.

ellipse: Yeah, I think that my production texture has those, sort of, signature timbers, right? Because when you’re a producer it’s different than just being a vocalist where you have your voice, or you’re a guitarist and that’s your instrument. From a producer standpoint you almost just have a vibe right, this soundscape. And I think those parts of Ill-Esha have gone into ellipse. It’s like, I sifted everything out and took the parts that feel real and natural with me and built a new frame. So I think that this has always been what’s deep inside of me, but because of feeling pressed by format or lifestyle, I’d always feel like, I want to do this but that’s not a 2am club banger. There’s no apology now.

I think it’ll take me some time to notice because I feel like I am very intimately connected with my existing fans. So that part feels the same. They came with me and they’re excited and supportive so it doesn’t feel too different. But what I’m really interested in is just the comments I might read and the response that will come back later from the people who have no context, basically. I’m really excited for that and I just definitely feel so free, and less like I did anything that I was supposed to. I’ve never really liked doing what I was supposed to do!

ellipse: Yeah! So this music video is a collage of a lot of overlapping ideas. Initially way back when this song first came into being – about four or five years ago – I filmed this live performance video in a glass truck in Seattle. At the time, I had a very fabulous hair stylist and I had just gotten this amazing, purple gradient thing that I could never do again on my own, let’s say, haha! We did this really cool footage, but it took so long for the rest of the vision to come together. I just decided to be patient with it, but by the time I was ready to fully do a video, the camera quality was almost out of date. So to be honest, that discrepancy between where I was now and where I started actually kind of inspired me to say, okay, I really like this footage, the intent of it is great, but how can I lean into the quality or the datedness of it? Myself and my collaborator came up with the idea of rebroadcasting it through an old TV that he had just happened to pick up. And actually just having the footage, be pixelated and grainy. I’d encounter this TV in very weird settings, like the woods, for example. That symbolizes dealing with your past self. It just all came together. Title of the song, “Poison” inspires a lot of mysterious liquids and potions in the visuals. And there’s some very, very cool analog effects with liquid and oils. So I think really, we just sat down with the core concept of it and leaned into the collage of textures that we can achieve here to talk about transformation.

ellipse: That’s also a brand new thing for me because I never had the time to do visuals for myself. I was always kind of running from place to place, and so that was another dimension that I thought, okay, if I’m just gonna do what I want, what have I always wanted? I want to create my own images too because painting with sound is a really natural activity for me. I have some cool cameras I’ve had an interest in and just never had the time. Since I wasn’t touring anymore I took that time and learned a lot about creating visuals. I learned about hooking visuals to my music, which is pretty natural anyway because I’m a live performer. I’ve always done stuff with MIDI controllers and equipment so visuals was just another axis to add into the equation. I definitely have a really strong vision for the visuals and I think that this track, ‘Poison’ is the first chapter of many that has incredible opportunities for imagery and symbolism. I’m really excited to be able to communicate that.

ellipse: And that’s such a good point because when I started making music, I was very young, and there wasn’t this easy laptop production culture. It was like hardware samplers that cost thousands of dollars that were totally out of reach for my teenage self. So it took me a long time to even get on board. But yeah, now you can express yourself so easily and there seems to be no learning curve, at least on a certain level. It’s quite cool.

ellipse: So many different ways. It’s kind of a blessing and a curse, because I think the gatekeeping versus exposure ratio has changed. But the net effect is the same. It used to be very difficult to reach people, but there also weren’t that many other artists. So if you did get seen, you would stand out. Now, you can basically tweet at anyone and reach people directly. But because of that, there’s a sea of people trying to get heard, they’re all yelling at the same time. So I think it’s tough. And if you’re not, like, also a comedian and also a public speaker, and a tech wizard, and a performer, it’s hard to get started as an artist. I mentor quite a lot of young aspiring music producers, and I’ve always really loved to be there because I know that when I was starting out, I had a lot of adopted, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. They’d teach me things, and I think it’s such an important thing to do. These young artists would ask me how to get started if they’re introverted and shy, and they hate doing content. And that was me, the only way I reconciled that was by learning how to do weird performance stuff. At least I could say, look at this cool thing I’m doing instead of just staring at the camera.

ellipse: Absolutely, and the feedback loop thing is a very dangerous thing for creativity because you put something out and then people tell you in the comments what you should or shouldn’t do, and that shapes it. But they liked you in the first place because you did something cool. So we can become this very distilled echo chamber where you just gradually become a service provider, essentially. There are so many talented, maybe neurodivergent musicians, let’s say, who aren’t comfortable in front of the camera. So it’s really hard, some of the best artists are the people who just spend hours immersed in their work. And they’re not the same people who want to deeply immerse themselves in front of the camera.

ellipse: I’m really excited about the art too, because every song has its own tarot card on the album. When the songs are all out, I’m gonna print a very small addition of these mini decks. Tarot has always been a powerful tool of self-meditation for me. I’m not necessarily into the mystical angle, but I think of it as a self reflection tool. It’s a really cool idea, these archetypes and these images. So when I thought about the 12 songs, what struck the most feelings, what was passing through. It was all these classic archetypes. I went through my deck and picked out the ones that were really resonating and I used them to inspire different songs. ‘Poison’ is inspired by the devil. It’s a bit funny because it looks a bit Gothic and I think it’s hard to tell what it’s gonna be like. But I think as the Tarot card idea unfolds in the context, it will make a lot more sense.

In terms of past, present, future, I thought about it myself and I also asked a lot of people I cared about – almost for another perspective – on who I was along the different stages of the journey. There’s always the stage in the past where you acknowledge and really feel the pain you’re in, which is basically this first chapter. Then there’s the transformation part and then emergence. So those are basically those three phases. It’s where I’ve been and some of the dark and sad places. It’s taking me to a place where I’ve had to embrace all sides of myself, and where it will go from here – which is a lot of joy and gratefulness at being alive. A lot of that I learned from my tribal friends, as well, just the joy of existing and having your basic needs met, and just being.

ellipse: Okay, I would say… Transcendent. Contemplative. Floating, I think I did a lot of floating, and when I make music, that is kind of my ultimate euphoria. When the track can just suspend reality for a second, and I can get lost in it. That’s when I know it’s real.

ellipse: I realized that it’s a journey, but it’s also a journey of myself, and my relationship to music. So looking at it that way, I would say ‘Poison’ was the first realization I had that no matter what I changed about my external life, I had to work through the real things in myself. I wasn’t happy where I was, so it didn’t matter what city you put me in, what size stage… There was an exhaustion, and it was something I needed to acknowledge was coming from me. That’s the perspective, and that’s the moment in my journey that ‘Poison’ represents. Just knowing that I had to change from myself, and not through any other solution.

ellipse: I think the continuous thread is the texture and the soundscapes. I really like to float, and each layer has to have meaningful silences and pauses and breaths. So I think you can expect something really intimate and minimal, but at the same time a rainbow and a fantasy and just something very complete in the way that your ears feel. I like to feel like every sense of mine is stimulated when I listen to music and that’s hope that I can make you feel too.

ellipse: I think there’s the classic, just disregard everyone’s thoughts around you until you figure out who you are. That’s really one that holds true. And I think with social media and the feedback loops, I see so many young artists come in whose first question is, how can I establish my brand? And I say, well what does your music sound like? And they say, I haven’t finished the song yet. I think I’d encourage people to reclaim leaning into their own creativity and just drown out the rest of the world. We just are so hypersensitive and focused on everyone else’s lives.

ellipse: I think it freed me of assumptions I had about myself that was built up from years of catering to my audience, in a way that I never noticed. So I mean it’s a different tempo. I used to make my songs only kind of in specific ranges so that I can play them in my live DJ sets. Now, I don’t care. I’m making new sets and I’m being experimental, and I’m not worried about the same things. So, I think it really helped me just sort of break that wall and realize that I can put out anything I want, and it feels good, and maybe it’s actually turning out better than all the stuff I tried before.

ellipse: I hope it’s a reminder to be vulnerable and be with yourself. We’re so used to being hyper entertained and filling every moment with something so we’re never alone with ourselves. But I think this entire record represents a diary of me being alone with myself and discovering a more peaceful way of life, just by letting go and leaning into that. That’s really what I hope will translate, that feeling.

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