Emerging artist ELDR has released her second EP, Höly stranger. We asked her the BIG questions . . .
Her latest offering also comes with a new video for the single, Friends, shot by Miles Ridgway (Arlo Parks) and directed by Philip James McGoldrick.
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Speaking about the video, ELDR said, "The Friends music video has a dystopian sci-fi atmosphere. 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."
A scholar from the National Film & Television School in London, ELDR has composed 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.
Tell us three things about yourself?
I have Irish roots - I recently found out my Irish great-grandmother made a secret society with her sisters called the Blackbird Club. It involved trapping and killing blackbirds in their attic because they were always hungry.
My mother was a spiritual woman and I was bought up believing in occult theosophy. When I was a child she sometimes locked herself in her bedroom to meditate. I would cry and bang on it until she opened it, always disturbing the peace! I carry a spiritual worldview with me to this day, I guess I am a perpetual truth seeker.
I gave birth just before the first lockdown. We started filming a DIY reality series during the pandemic about the joys and challenges of parenthood and being an artist in these strange times, called ELDR:TV.
How would you describe your music?
Ethereal alt indie pop with hints of Celtic ancestry?
Who are your musical inspirations?
I’m inspired by everything and anything but Warpaint, Nirvana, PJ Harvey and Nick Cave run in my blood.
What was the first gig you ever went to and the first record you ever bought/downloaded?
I think it was a Rolling Stones concert, but I was too small and so far back I couldn’t see much. I ended up mainly watching this guy in a nearby row who kept erratically screaming Charlie Watts’ name and I was struck by the absurdity of crowd adulation. My first job was in a second-hand record store so I got my first records there - discovering Nirvana Unplugged was a game changing moment for me!
What’s your favourite song right now?
I’ve just discovered a Belgian/Egyptian artist called Tamino - his song Tummy is incredible.
Favourite lyric of all time?
"Great Babylon was naked, oh she stood there trembling for me. And Bethlehem inflamed us both, like the shy one at some orgy". Leonard Cohen - Last Year’s Man.
If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life what would it be?
Probably Warpaint’s Undertow. Ironically, if that was the only song I could listen to forever I’d probably end up hating it though!
Where can people find your music/more information?
Come and listen on Spotify, YouTube and Instagram @eldrofficial. I also compose film soundtracks. This is my website.
