Discovery: Ela Minus – Taste and Instinct

Beat / When you set out to record DÍA, what was your idea or feeling about the kind of sound palette you wanted for this release?

Ela Minus / I had none. I had no idea. I never knew what I'm going to make until I made it.

Beat / Does that also go for the lyrics?

Ela Minus / Yes. Words always come later for me, music always comes first. Same as life probably. Feelings come first, then I try to find the words. That said, I did work a lot on them, a lot. Until I felt they were concise, powerful and true.

Beat / What is the significance of the title DÍA in this respect?

Ela Minus / This album felt like walking into a room, and walking into myself and turning a light on, then observing. The way I define the word is: a finite period of time defined by the presence of light. And I think that is what this record is.

Beat / Did you test some of the material live?

Ela Minus / I actually didn't play at all. I cancelled all the live shows and I had to focus fully on making the record. I can't do both things at the same time. I did play a lot before I started making it and quickly became very stressed and anxious because I realized - I learned that about my self - that I was not going to be able to make the record while playing live. I had to make a very hard decision and decided to stop all live shows until the record was done.

Beat / Quite a bit of the material for DÍA was written while you were travelling.

Ela Minus / Yes, I was working from different studios and random places, so I only travelled with my laptop and one or two small synths. Then, I used the gear that I had at my disposal when I was at studios, and edited and re-arranged a lot on my laptop. Very different from acts of rebellion. The process of making my two records were literally the opposite from each other.

Beat / How would you describe the influence of the travelling?

Ela Minus / The moving around, the not knowing where I was going to go next, the constant deadline of time - finite amount of studio days, finite amount of hotel nights paid … everything felt finite and at the same time infinite, as I guess I could have just kept going to new places and new studios.

Beat / Those spaces, places, countries and experiences must have left a trace on the music.

Ela Minus / There are some songs that you clearly hear the places on, like on “ABRIR MONTE” which I made on a mountain in Mexico with nothing around me except animals and nature. Or on “ONWARDS” which I made in the desert in California in between playing Coachella weekends – stress, anxiety, the feeling of being measured. “COMBAT” was partly made in Colombia, it makes me feel solid and my resilience comes out. I want to make anthems for the place I am from for the people that share my background. I connect to something different when I'm there.

Beat / These are all very personal observations.

Ela Minus / In the end I think what came out the most with the travelling and working from that “place” was a deeper understanding of myself, a deeper dive into my inner workings. When everything is a variable and constantly changing, the only constant becomes very evidently yourself, your body, soul and mind. Patterns start to emerge more clearly, reactions to stressful situations, the way I feel with constant prolonged solitude which also becomes more visible when you are far away in unknown places where you know no one … So I think even though of course the physical places made it into the music, what I feel made it more into the music out of those places is what those places brought out in me.

Beat / What were some of the challenges and benefits of producing on the move?

Ela Minus / I don't know if it's good or bad: the outside world inevitably gets in. Some of the benefits are that finite time made me work faster and not overthink so much or waste time obsessing over details. I also worked with a lot more synths and gear that I would not have access to if I were working from my own studio. But then there are challenges: finite time at places, time spent on the move, things being stressful.

Beat / You've singled out the Juno 60 and Moog Minitaur as important instruments for you personally. What makes them so perfect for your creative process?

Ela Minus / The fact that I own them is one ... the Moog Minitaur is just a very reliable bass that I've had for a long time and I know it and love the sound very much. The Juno is similar, I love the sound. I know it so I can shape the sound to what I'm looking for. And for a while it was the only polyphonic synth I had.

Beat / To me, one of the stand-out sonic elements of DÍA is the creative use of extreme distortion and compression. When and how did that enter into the production?

Ela Minus / It started slowly. I started gravitating towards it and eventually realized it was an element used throughout the entire record. I love distortion in all its shapes and it is something that I am very interested in exploring in sound.

Beat / The songs on DÍA seem to have undergone many stages and transformations. What did this process of shaping and re-shaping look like in practise? Would you consider the earlier songs “unfinished” or rather “different versions”?

Ela Minus / Re-making things, making a million versions, edits and variations is all part of making records. That is just how it goes. You are shaping something out of nothing and it takes time and you have to try so many different things and follow them through to know if they work or not, if they fit the bigger picture or not, if they stand the test of time - even if it's only the time you are working on the record. I don't know if I considered them “unfinished” or “different versions.” Those are just words. I guess it's just like ... they are all ideas?

Beat / So what actually makes a piece better and what sets a “finished” version apart from one destined to linger in the archives?

Ela Minus / Taste and instinct. You just know, and sometimes you don't. Also, we make mistakes - you’ll listen to something that you archived years ago and you realise it's amazing and you just didn't see it at the time. And that's okay, because it still exists. Which is why it's important to archive things. But yes, I guess in my case, I try to just go with my gut.

Beat / Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Ela Minus / Great question. I think the outcome is different but the intention can be the same and I find that devastatingly beautiful and inspiring. I hope to be an artist of whom you can say that you see me in everything I make. From a cup of coffee, to how I treat others, to the music, to the coffee, to the things I write. That they are all expressions of different parts of myself but you can see or feel me in all of them.

www.elaminus.com | www.dominomusic.com