Freyja Elsy
... is an independent singer songwriter and composer based in Cardiff, Wales. Classically trained from a young age and continuing her music education at university, Freyja’s music takes influence from orchestral & chamber sounds and from electronic, folktronica and synthpop artists such as AURORA, Massive Attack and The Naked and Famous.
Who is the "human" behind the artist Freyja Elsy and how did you get into music?
I’m a composer, songwriter and musician from Cardiff, Wales. I’ve been creating music since I was a teenager and studied a degree in Music at Cardiff University after playing instruments from a young age. I’ve since been working as a sound FX editor for film and television for the last few years and performed as keyboardist and vocalist for the jazz-punk band Blue Amber since 2019. I’m also an amateur visual artist (I created the artwork for ‘Golden Hour’ myself!) and avid reader in my spare time.
Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, I used to try to play my grandma’s piano at a very young age, my family and I used to watch the Proms every year on the television and I started learning the flute when I was 7 years old, and piano aged 10. I picked up learning the instrument pretty quickly, I fell in love with performing at a young age, playing Eisteddfods and competitions and finding any opportunities to play my instruments throughout my childhood and teen years.
During high school I would often escape to the music department to play the piano and practise the flute and found myself starting to write songs that would help me verbalise how I was feeling during a time in which I was suffering with depression and anxiety, and trauma surrounding a religious upbringing. I feel like I’m always rediscovering a newfound passion for music whenever I encounter new music that I love listening to, or playing, or trying something new in my compositions or productions. Music feels limitless and is constantly reinventing itself and that excites me all the time.
At the moment I’m exploring a mix of electronic and orchestral sounds in a pop soundworld. I’m often finding myself writing about either personal experiences or politics, whether that’s feminism, environmental or social issues, or general social commentary. Sometimes when I’m feeling frustrated that I’m not able to solve a broader issue, writing it down in prose, song or a musical piece can help express something that is important to me. Sometimes it helps people reflect or relate to an issue and I think that’s at the heart of music and artistic endeavours - to connect and communicate.
"Golden Hour" sounds amazing , on the one side we have the piano and the strings on the other synths and drums and everything gets connected over the vocals, how long did you work on the song and what's the story?
I’m so glad you love the song! I started writing “Golden Hour” in May 2022, and I worked on the writing and production for about 3 months. It started out as a piano ballad - I had gone to the piano just to play or write, whilst faced with a period of time in which I had a few big life decisions to make and I was feeling overwhelmed. I started putting chords together and playing around with a lyrical idea of ‘golden hour’, the transition time between day and night where everything is washed in a warm glow. I considered the parallels between life transitions and the transition between day and night, and how a fear that could arise from this change could be an allegory for life in general.
Sometimes in the songwriting stage, I can almost hear the song play out in my head, or at least a vision of what it could sound like, and with this song I envisioned a rising melody accompanied by a thicker texture, enveloped by the feeling of growing or uplifting tension. I kept the string texture minimal in melody rather than thick chords and used stacked vocal harmonies instead as accompaniment. It ended up creating a sort of early 2000s pop feel to the song.
Nowadays songs have a playtime of around 2min 30s, what do you think ... advantage or disadvantage?
I definitely feel like our attention spans have decreased significantly over the last decade or so. I can’t say what’s caused that exactly, but I suspect it’s to do with smartphones and social media. I feel like this is reflected in our popular music listening habits as well. I agree, however, that pop music should catch our attention quickly - but I’m all for a long drawn out instrumental. Most of my songs have been written like this in the past and funnily enough Golden Hour was one of my first songs that I challenged myself to keep it under 3:30 - 4 minutes. A shorter playtime means you can grab your audience quickly and then leave them wanting more at the end of the song, which is great for upbeat or higher energy pop songs. If the playtime is too short on something more mellow and reflective, you risk leaving the audience feeling like there was more that needed to be said or meditated upon. In conclusion… it really depends on your genre and end goal with each song!
Your first ever self written song was about ...?
I think my very first original song was a cynical take on excessive partying and social expectation, which is a bit embarrassing to admit now. It’s been one of those songs I’ve had in the works for well over a decade and it’s gone through various changes, transforming into something that feels more reflective, nostalgic, and compassionate on whatever feelings I had whilst writing that as an angsty teen. Perhaps it’ll see the light of day at some point soon…
We are all living in a social media era, how important is social media in your opinion for Indie artists?
I have a love-hate relationship with social media. I’ve found that in some ways social media has helped me to connect to listeners and new audiences, particularly since I’ve been focussing more on my recorded music than live performances recently. This is often good in theory, but I’ve found that in the last couple of years or so the traditional social media platforms seem to be catering less to the individual and more to businesses.
I’m not even able to see what my friends are up to unless I scroll through 50 video ads, and by that point I’ve probably quit the app. Instagram is the worst for this, and my views drop the moment I want to promote some of my own work - implying that the platform isn’t pushing the content to my followers. I do think TikTok is the ‘It’ platform at the moment for creatives, as it’s a great way to show both your work and parts of your own authentic life, therefore connecting to new audiences even more than you might have been able to before. It’s something I’d like to explore a bit more.
You are from Cardiff, Wales ... how would you describe the music scene there, especially the Indie scene?
Cardiff’s music scene is thriving and bursting with amazing new music across the genres at the moment, as well as the Welsh music scene in general, and it’s one of the biggest things that drew me to the city in the first place.
There is a strong established indie/indie rock scene, but there are plenty of new bands and artists that are trying something new with different genres as well as this one, blurring lines and creating something fresh and unique. Sometimes I forget how small Cardiff can be, and then at a festival like Sŵn or Hub, you recognise a lot of familiar faces in various different bands, helping each other out with bringing the music scene to life. I love it.
Two month to Christmas, have you bought any gifts so far?
Just one present so far! I say it every year that I’ll start sorting out Christmas presents early rather than panicking mid-December but this might be the first time I actually achieve that! (hopefully)
What can we expect from you in the near future?
I’ve still got so many song ideas that are either half finished or floating around in my head at the moment, so my next plan is to create an EP of works. I’d like to try and create a collection of songs that are congruent with each other in some way so it’s an exciting challenge. Simultaneously, I’m trying to put together a live show with my new material. It's been a few years since I performed solo so I'm aiming to get back on stage in early 2023.
