Ela Stiles

Skype Interview by Samuel Huxley Smith
Photos shot by Max Doyle in Sydney, Australia

The memory of your first encounter with Ela Stiles is something that will often revisit you unannounced. Her bewitching a cappella experimentation, using the only instrument readily available to all of us, feels strangely familiar, like a distant impression from time immemorial – though she asks you not to dwell in the past. Instead immerse yourself in those who inspire, seek novel ways to create – and definitely get your ass to India.

The human voice is widely recognised as the first ever instrument. What made you look back to this primal means of music making?

Well, I think my strength is my voice. I play a lot of instruments but I’m best at singing and I love singing, it’s my favourite thing. I’m in quite a few bands – from punk bands to pop bands, heads of different stuff – so I just had an idea of making an a cappella record. I don’t know, because I just love singing.

To conjure that kind of historic memory is pretty wild, though.

I like the idea of experimenting with the voice, creating all that drone stuff, and I like to try to push the limits of my voice, making it sound like something else.

And it also feels strangely novel because no one else is doing it.

‘I’m trying to stop writing songs about boys because that’s really boring’

Yeah, nobody’s really doing it, and I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in Australia I just felt like there’s so much of the same thing here, there’s real trends when it comes to music – especially in the indie scene and whatever. I think I just wanted to do something completely different that no one was doing.

Were you a Druid princess in a past life?

I don’t know what I was in a past life! I don’t think I’ve been a princess… Do I have to answer? Maybe I can say a siren?

Beckoning sailors to their death?

Yeah. You know, singing and hypnotising men.

Can you recall the earliest influence that made you go, ‘Yeah, I wanna make stuff’?

I come from a family of musicians, my mother was a musician, my aunties and father were musicians so I guess I’ve always been surrounded by it. And I’ve always wanted to sing. I don’t know what inspired me – probably my mum, mostly. But aside from that, probably the biggest one is Anne Briggs. She did a lot of a cappella stuff, which is where I got the idea from. Her voice is very imperfect, it’s beautiful and not polished. It’s very flawed, and that’s what I love about it. I don’t like this whole trend of women singing in that breathy kind of weak way. I’m in to pushing your voice and really singing.

Would you go back to that place for inspiration?

I get a lot of my inspiration from my friends, I have a lot of talented friends that are musicians but I try not to remember the past. A lot of inspiration for me at the moment is travelling to India, I’ve been there a few times. I’m really interested in that culture, in religion. I’m not religious but I’m kind of obsessed with the way religion makes people act. I try to think of the good things people get from religion. I wish I believed in something, but I don’t. The song ‘Kumbh Mela’ off of my album, it’s a festival in India, the biggest human gathering in the world.

‘I don’t like this whole trend of women singing in that breathy kind of weak way. I’m in to pushing your voice and really singing’

What does making music do to you?

It just makes me happy because I’m not good at anything else, so when I’m performing on stage, it’s like the best half an hour. It’s the happiest that I am in my life, because nothing else makes me happy in that way. I know that I’m meant to be there – like, it’s my purpose.

And how do you want to make people feel?

Transcendent.

Do you think music helps us remember who we are?

Yeah, I think so. Mostly everything I write about is about myself – or, like, boys or something. I’m trying to stop writing songs about boys because that’s really boring . I think different people want different things out of music. I think it’s spiritual to some degree – although I don’t even know what spiritual means!

Ela Stiles plays 17 November for The Rest Is Noise in Amsterdam and on 20 November at WORM in Rotterdam. Both shows are free for Subbacultcha! members.