Over the last year or so, I have been keeping a close eye on Ivor Novello nominated singer/songwriter Elina. First hitting my radar with her debut single, “Wild Enough”, Elina has continued to roll out phenomenal singles one after the next, racking up millions of plays, landing support from industry heavyweights and setting herself firmly within the spot of “artist to watch”, with tastemakers far and wide.
While we have covered nearly every one of Elina’s singles up to this point, hearing them all come together helps to tie it all together. New single, “Masquerade”, follows the lead of her previous works, lead by delicate piano and nothing more while Elina lays down a touching and heartfelt performance. About the track she offers, “‘Masquerade’ for me is an invitation to embrace everything that makes us human. All the self-doubt, the fear, the desires, the confusion that comes with letting someone in and loving them. I want it to be a voice of reason and a reminder to be kind to ourselves and to others, knowing that everyone is navigating through life with their own baggage.”
Having written behind the scenes for years stacking up credits on some of your favorite Pop smashes, it wasn’t until 2018 that Elina went solo – and the rest, as they say, is history. The culmination of her efforts thus were combined into her debut EP, “In Hindsight”, at the top of the summer, bundling her previously released acclaimed singles with some new additions to create one of the most cohesive and all around beautiful projects I have heard in sometime. Beyond her incredible voice, Elina finds a way to connect with fans on every track, penning deep and relatable lyrics that cross borders and penetrate hearts.
While I could go on and on about Elina and the beauty that is, “In Hindsight”, sometimes it is best to hear directly from the artist about what it all means to them. Keep scrolling to check out what Elina has to say about the project and how it came to be.
“At the beginning of making this EP, I was in a bit of an emotional limbo. I was very confused. All my life I had found comfort in knowing that creativity came fluently for me, with ease. Now I was at a point where it didn’t. I went through a lot of change in my personal life, and somewhere along the way I sort of lost the main reason I started writing music in the first place, as an outlet, the oasis it was for me. Instead it had become associated with anxiety, and writing was a complete struggle. The person I was identifying myself as suddenly had very narrow balks to balance on. It came to a point where I had to regain some focus and some of this lost trust in myself, so this EP started coming to life. The scenarios in the songs were very present in my own life at the time. Through them I could build a creative place without pressure and guidelines. Dealing with destructive thoughts and feelings came with a lot of loneliness. We create our ideas of what life and happiness is supposed to look like by scrolling our fingers until bloody watching feeds where all traces of reality are removed. It’s misleading. Life shamelessly serves you a broken heart, loneliness, pain, loss and tragedy. We definitely need each other’s support to get through it and by keeping ourselves and others believe that we’re relieved of vulnerability, we are heading in an even lonelier direction I think. We’re all fighting battles at the end of the day. That is what I want to shed some light on with this EP. To hopefully, with these songs, make it a bit easier to talk about the things that burden you, knowing it’s neither weak nor shameful.”
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