Music / Features
Track by Track:
Indira Elias -
Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun
Indira Elias -
Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun
Off the back of the release of her debut album last week through Loba Records, we caught up with Sydney folk-noir artist Indira Elias to unravel the stories that make up her breathtakingly evocative new record Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun.
Written over the course of a decade, Indira Elias’ debut album is a stunning journey through the songwriter’s expressive dream-folk sound that blurs seamlessly with her own coming of age stories. Built around a tapestry of lilting grooves, the intricate tangle of soft guitars, meandering piano and even delicate harp, and Indira’s intoxicating vocals, Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun is a compelling introduction that warmly beckons us into her mesmerising sonic world.
From beginning to end, the album feels anchored by Indira’s remarkable ability to play with mood. Opening track ‘If I’d Known You (I wouldn’t be so lonely)’ lulls us into the listen with an expansive seven minute excursion that gleams with nostalgia and hints of lost love, and moments later, ‘Lend Me’ and ‘Restart’ build around immersive atmospheres and languorous grooves that unravel open around Indira’s balmy disposition.
Even at her most emotionally potent, the listen feels delightfully effortless. ‘À Mon Cœur’ strips things down to vocals and guitar to tell a story of low self-esteem that sounds completely self-assured, and tracks like ‘Free Flights For Lovers’ and ’Skin Like A Glove’ feel as enchanting as they are dramatic and turbulent. Finally, the album rounds out with ‘Urania (Beyond the Clouds)’, a track that ties together everything that makes Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun so magical - the playful yet subdued instrumentation, Indira’s carefully delivered words and vocals loaded with whimsy, and the sense of wonder that lies behind every track that keeps us leaning forward to uncover what else she might reveal to us.
To help us journey deeper into the record, Indira kindly walked us through each track that makes up Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun.
From beginning to end, the album feels anchored by Indira’s remarkable ability to play with mood. Opening track ‘If I’d Known You (I wouldn’t be so lonely)’ lulls us into the listen with an expansive seven minute excursion that gleams with nostalgia and hints of lost love, and moments later, ‘Lend Me’ and ‘Restart’ build around immersive atmospheres and languorous grooves that unravel open around Indira’s balmy disposition.
Even at her most emotionally potent, the listen feels delightfully effortless. ‘À Mon Cœur’ strips things down to vocals and guitar to tell a story of low self-esteem that sounds completely self-assured, and tracks like ‘Free Flights For Lovers’ and ’Skin Like A Glove’ feel as enchanting as they are dramatic and turbulent. Finally, the album rounds out with ‘Urania (Beyond the Clouds)’, a track that ties together everything that makes Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun so magical - the playful yet subdued instrumentation, Indira’s carefully delivered words and vocals loaded with whimsy, and the sense of wonder that lies behind every track that keeps us leaning forward to uncover what else she might reveal to us.
To help us journey deeper into the record, Indira kindly walked us through each track that makes up Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun.
Songs from a Moon
If I’d Known You (I wouldn’t be so lonely)
This song and I have had a pretty tumultuous relationship. Let me set the scene. I’m 19, living in Paris and beginning my studies in Pâtisserie. It’s my first day alone, and as I’m walking through some beautiful boulevard in the Northern arrondissements I get this overwhelming feeling of “knowing” that I’m about to enter a moment that will change my life. I rush home and change, grab my guitar and head to an open mic that I’ve read about online. Here, this night, I meet my First Big Love (FBL) and go on to write ‘If I’d Known You…’ to woo him. It worked, and my entire world was swept away. I spent countless nights on that tiny stage in the damp jazz cave at Le Tennessee, fashioning songs and cooing about love and fate. I wrote a blogpost at the time that described the moment as “pretty much Bill Murray hosting a bunch of musically gifted fringe-dwellers from multiple countries and [cliques] in an underground stone cellar”.
When this period ended, along with the relationship, I couldn’t even THINK about the song. I hated it for causing me so much pain. Time passed and did what it does, until I heard the song again and realised who I’d really been singing to. If only I’d known myself, I would never have been lonely - in all of my darkest moments. Most of the Songs from a Moon were sculpted in that tiny cave, about that huge love, and most of them held wisdom that I can only now understand. It’s safe to say that now this track and I are on good terms.
Lend Me
‘Lend Me’ so beautifully captures the naïveté of young, unrequited love. I wrote it when I was clueless, grasping at something I couldn’t quite understand. “Lend me your heart love, just for a day, and I promise... I won't let it stray…” Like a child, desperate to hold a delicate jewel and bargaining with promises not to break it. I recorded the song without a click track, and my incredible harpist, Ida Warhol, just had to follow my voice (I still feel bad about it, ha!). This gave the song a stumbling uncertainty that I absolutely love - like finding one’s path while already on the way, which is coincidentally the only way I like to do things.
Restart
‘Restart’ has a special place in my heart. The first single that I ever released, its launch was the first headline show my band had played. It helped me to find my beautiful music community. I wrote it for my highschool best friend who was going through a terrible break-up. We were so close, her pain truly felt like my own - but it was the first close-up heartache I had experienced and I didn’t know what to do. I could see the marks of “adulthood” rising to the surface and trying to dim the light and joy of “youth” - which, I will add, has nothing whatsoever to do with age and everything to do with perspective. Writing a song for her was the only way I thought I could be there for her, to encourage her to stay hopeful and soft, singing to her from across the sea.
Far Too Young
While my life in Paris felt like a golden, hazy film, as with any great romance, there was chaos. A Big Love is like a hot coal - if you’re not ready to handle it, it will burn and make you cry. In the beginning of my FBL, I was tossed into the air and left sizzling on the ground, and ‘Far Too Young’ was there to comfort me. At the time, I couldn’t understand how one could turn away from the allure of a Big Love, when it feels like the pull of fate. Now, I understand that you do what you can when you’re ready. I can also now discern the “pull of fate” from codependency patterns - but that’s something else entirely. Some people say this should be a disco track, I’d love to hear that if anyone is keen.
À Mon Cœur
‘À Mon Cœur’ is a break from the whirring, meta fantasies of the rest of the album. It is a sad letter “to my own heart”, a picture of low self-esteem and the disappointment of others. This song is the little voice in your head that says “I told you so, you are not good enough, you are too much”. It is painful to sing and it is very hard for me to listen to, but it’s the truth of a moment that many people feel. This song is a window into the dark moments that inform our insecurities, and the scars that build us over time. It closes this first chapter perfectly.
If I’d Known You (I wouldn’t be so lonely)
This song and I have had a pretty tumultuous relationship. Let me set the scene. I’m 19, living in Paris and beginning my studies in Pâtisserie. It’s my first day alone, and as I’m walking through some beautiful boulevard in the Northern arrondissements I get this overwhelming feeling of “knowing” that I’m about to enter a moment that will change my life. I rush home and change, grab my guitar and head to an open mic that I’ve read about online. Here, this night, I meet my First Big Love (FBL) and go on to write ‘If I’d Known You…’ to woo him. It worked, and my entire world was swept away. I spent countless nights on that tiny stage in the damp jazz cave at Le Tennessee, fashioning songs and cooing about love and fate. I wrote a blogpost at the time that described the moment as “pretty much Bill Murray hosting a bunch of musically gifted fringe-dwellers from multiple countries and [cliques] in an underground stone cellar”.
When this period ended, along with the relationship, I couldn’t even THINK about the song. I hated it for causing me so much pain. Time passed and did what it does, until I heard the song again and realised who I’d really been singing to. If only I’d known myself, I would never have been lonely - in all of my darkest moments. Most of the Songs from a Moon were sculpted in that tiny cave, about that huge love, and most of them held wisdom that I can only now understand. It’s safe to say that now this track and I are on good terms.
Lend Me
‘Lend Me’ so beautifully captures the naïveté of young, unrequited love. I wrote it when I was clueless, grasping at something I couldn’t quite understand. “Lend me your heart love, just for a day, and I promise... I won't let it stray…” Like a child, desperate to hold a delicate jewel and bargaining with promises not to break it. I recorded the song without a click track, and my incredible harpist, Ida Warhol, just had to follow my voice (I still feel bad about it, ha!). This gave the song a stumbling uncertainty that I absolutely love - like finding one’s path while already on the way, which is coincidentally the only way I like to do things.
Restart
‘Restart’ has a special place in my heart. The first single that I ever released, its launch was the first headline show my band had played. It helped me to find my beautiful music community. I wrote it for my highschool best friend who was going through a terrible break-up. We were so close, her pain truly felt like my own - but it was the first close-up heartache I had experienced and I didn’t know what to do. I could see the marks of “adulthood” rising to the surface and trying to dim the light and joy of “youth” - which, I will add, has nothing whatsoever to do with age and everything to do with perspective. Writing a song for her was the only way I thought I could be there for her, to encourage her to stay hopeful and soft, singing to her from across the sea.
Far Too Young
While my life in Paris felt like a golden, hazy film, as with any great romance, there was chaos. A Big Love is like a hot coal - if you’re not ready to handle it, it will burn and make you cry. In the beginning of my FBL, I was tossed into the air and left sizzling on the ground, and ‘Far Too Young’ was there to comfort me. At the time, I couldn’t understand how one could turn away from the allure of a Big Love, when it feels like the pull of fate. Now, I understand that you do what you can when you’re ready. I can also now discern the “pull of fate” from codependency patterns - but that’s something else entirely. Some people say this should be a disco track, I’d love to hear that if anyone is keen.
À Mon Cœur
‘À Mon Cœur’ is a break from the whirring, meta fantasies of the rest of the album. It is a sad letter “to my own heart”, a picture of low self-esteem and the disappointment of others. This song is the little voice in your head that says “I told you so, you are not good enough, you are too much”. It is painful to sing and it is very hard for me to listen to, but it’s the truth of a moment that many people feel. This song is a window into the dark moments that inform our insecurities, and the scars that build us over time. It closes this first chapter perfectly.
Songs by the Sun
Soon Enough
Part two of the album begins with this heavenly, warm lullaby. Written after returning to Australia and reflecting on the FBL from afar, it settles in the peace of being held in love, despite its troubles. Another song that was hard to listen to for a number of years without crying (lol), it came back to me with a new peaceful Big Love that followed. Zigi Blau’s improvised piano throughout and at the end of this track lifts me right up into heaven and if we break up I’ll probably never be able to listen to it again. Or at least until I’m in my late 70s doing a comeback tour or something.
Free Flights for Lovers
As anyone in a long-distance relationship will tell you, flights should be free for separated lovers and that's THAT. I love performing this song live. Sometimes we’ll open a show with it, and it really gets us listening to each other and capital-P-Playing in real time. While it is “composed”, the arrangement is mostly about sections where we ~do things~ like the quiet sections where we play sparsely, or the rumbling sections where we progressively get bigger. My favourite is the airport section where everyone plays like a sad, echoing airport or a wailing airplane engine. I will forever remember the exact moment this song was written about - sweaty palms and a shirt soaking with tears - if you listen closely you should be able to hear it.
Skin Like a Glove
This point of the album shows us a different kind of heartbreak. The more we move through love, the more we realise its value in so many more places than just romance. I wrote this song to console myself, while my family as I knew it fell apart. In the middle of a breakdown, I turned, as many women do, to Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ The Women Who Run With the Wolves. My mother gave me the book at 16, but I had only read a chapter here and there. Finally coming to it when I was ready, the revelations were powerful and grounded me to my path. Skin like a Glove is about “La Loba”, the wolf woman in Mexican folklore that sings to the bones of those who have perished in the desert. The Bones themselves are a person’s core self, and by nourishing them with song - soul food - the flesh will return to them and the person will come back to life. This period, and this song, taught me so much about the “life-death-life cycle”, as Estes calls it, and every time I play it I am summoning death and life all at once. It feels like an exorcism and a prayer.
Dreamy Youth
I was so lucky to grow up in the hinterland of Cavanbah/Byron Bay, amongst rolling hills and trees. It is a luscious, abundant place, and the air is heavy with fertility and energy. Through tinted glasses my childhood was “dreamy”, but small towns have a dark side, and as a teen I couldn’t get out quick enough. I sadly did not account for the place, and the people, that I had left behind, to never be the same once I’d returned. ‘Dreamy Youth’ helped me to come to terms with the nuances in the pain of growing up, wishing for just one last embrace before I have to go.
Urania (Beyond the Clouds)
The final track on the album was inspired by Urania, the Ancient Greek muse of astronomy, celestial objects and stars, universal love and the exact sciences. She is depicted with a cloak of stars, looking to the heavens as she reads the future from the cosmos. Closing this decade-long chapter, ‘Urania (Beyond the Clouds)’ calls into being a peaceful and deeply connected future. It is a meditation on Space and Time, integral in creation, connection and intuition. “Come with me” she asks, on the journey to our Selves. Urania heralds what is to come, and rejoices.
Soon Enough
Part two of the album begins with this heavenly, warm lullaby. Written after returning to Australia and reflecting on the FBL from afar, it settles in the peace of being held in love, despite its troubles. Another song that was hard to listen to for a number of years without crying (lol), it came back to me with a new peaceful Big Love that followed. Zigi Blau’s improvised piano throughout and at the end of this track lifts me right up into heaven and if we break up I’ll probably never be able to listen to it again. Or at least until I’m in my late 70s doing a comeback tour or something.
Free Flights for Lovers
As anyone in a long-distance relationship will tell you, flights should be free for separated lovers and that's THAT. I love performing this song live. Sometimes we’ll open a show with it, and it really gets us listening to each other and capital-P-Playing in real time. While it is “composed”, the arrangement is mostly about sections where we ~do things~ like the quiet sections where we play sparsely, or the rumbling sections where we progressively get bigger. My favourite is the airport section where everyone plays like a sad, echoing airport or a wailing airplane engine. I will forever remember the exact moment this song was written about - sweaty palms and a shirt soaking with tears - if you listen closely you should be able to hear it.
Skin Like a Glove
This point of the album shows us a different kind of heartbreak. The more we move through love, the more we realise its value in so many more places than just romance. I wrote this song to console myself, while my family as I knew it fell apart. In the middle of a breakdown, I turned, as many women do, to Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ The Women Who Run With the Wolves. My mother gave me the book at 16, but I had only read a chapter here and there. Finally coming to it when I was ready, the revelations were powerful and grounded me to my path. Skin like a Glove is about “La Loba”, the wolf woman in Mexican folklore that sings to the bones of those who have perished in the desert. The Bones themselves are a person’s core self, and by nourishing them with song - soul food - the flesh will return to them and the person will come back to life. This period, and this song, taught me so much about the “life-death-life cycle”, as Estes calls it, and every time I play it I am summoning death and life all at once. It feels like an exorcism and a prayer.
Dreamy Youth
I was so lucky to grow up in the hinterland of Cavanbah/Byron Bay, amongst rolling hills and trees. It is a luscious, abundant place, and the air is heavy with fertility and energy. Through tinted glasses my childhood was “dreamy”, but small towns have a dark side, and as a teen I couldn’t get out quick enough. I sadly did not account for the place, and the people, that I had left behind, to never be the same once I’d returned. ‘Dreamy Youth’ helped me to come to terms with the nuances in the pain of growing up, wishing for just one last embrace before I have to go.
Urania (Beyond the Clouds)
The final track on the album was inspired by Urania, the Ancient Greek muse of astronomy, celestial objects and stars, universal love and the exact sciences. She is depicted with a cloak of stars, looking to the heavens as she reads the future from the cosmos. Closing this decade-long chapter, ‘Urania (Beyond the Clouds)’ calls into being a peaceful and deeply connected future. It is a meditation on Space and Time, integral in creation, connection and intuition. “Come with me” she asks, on the journey to our Selves. Urania heralds what is to come, and rejoices.
Songs from a Moon//Songs by the Sun is out now on Loba Records.
