Always managing to sparkle in your ears with a magical tone, ellie d. releases “Is It Even Real?” a shimmering new track that feels about as dreamy as its name suggests… even though there’s a dark side to it.
ellie d. is an L.A. native who figuratively wears California on her musical sleeve, making catchy and almost painfully vulnerable songs tinted with all the melancholy and hope of the city’s legendary sunsets. Guiding you into an ethereal world with her gorgeous and delicate voice, ellie seems to have a knack for melodic elegance supported by the rather unornamented electropop set dressing she seems to thrive in. The musical landscapes she presents us with are rather simple and straightforward, yes, but always conducive to emotional intimacy and a relaxing atmosphere.
with “Is It Even Real?” ellie lays bare a lot more than she probably has before, confessing to a growing anxiety that she’s drawn to sentimentally-dysfunctional relationships, even saying that the song “captures a toxic relationship and the fear that all you know or enjoy are the relationships with the constant ups and downs. You crave the mess. Is it even real if there’s no crying, no fighting?” She then reveals a bit more about this experience by saying “My ex constantly had excuses for the way he treated me, constant apologies, but no real change ever. I almost hit the breaking point so many times, but really believed him that he wanted to change.”
Though it sounds soft as a flower’s petals, this song couldn’t get more into the grit of the emotional drama that plagued this chapter of her love life, going so far as to confess some deeply conflicting feelings that tormented her in ways that are perhaps not possible through any medium other than music.
“I started to realize we weren’t right for each other but didn’t have the strength to walk away,” she says. “Part of me thinks I liked the mess, liked the ups and downs. He ended up being the one to break up with me. I was destroyed. I couldn’t eat for days, cried for days” She further confides about the song. This -almost- monomaniacal romantic tragedy did more than fuel sleepless teary nights, as a previously-planned NYC trip turned into a 3-week stay during which she set on to write and record much of her upcoming EP project, of which “Is It Even Real?” is merely scratching the surface.
Photos: Courtesy of the artist
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