Life’s journey is best when made with someone whom you trust, a person you can learn from and hopefully teach occasionally. Elika fuses fuzzed-out textures and geometric electronics while forging a pathway through Love, Tragedy, and Defeat.
The Brooklyn duo, Evagelia Maravelias and Brian Wenckenbach, have been recording and releasing music since 2006, the most recent being ‘Snuggle Bunnies.’ Featuring soothing vocals mingled with washes of distant, dreamy synths and guitars, Elika’s March 2012 release (Saint Marie Records) is titled ‘Always the Light.’
A blend of electronica beats, shoegaze fuzz, and interludes of ambience Elika offers insightful lyrics coupled with strong rhythms. Elika’s calming vocals feel like the warmth of a favorite shall comforting you amidst the restless stirrings of the day’s commotion.
This Brooklyn DIY duo is Evagelia Maravelias (vocals, synths, drums, illustration) and Brian Wenckebach (guitar, bass, synths, production). They recorded, mixed, and self-produced their second full length album, ‘Snuggle Bunnies,’ released in late 2010. Elika has opened for their friends Ulrich Schnauss at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC and Asobi Seksu at The Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Their multi-genre musings have been well received by audiences in the USA as well as the Canada, the UK, and Peru. Eva and Brian spoke to Resonance about genre trends, album symmetry, and the art of naming albums.
This is what matters now. The two of us, together. What I want is less important than what we need in order to work. I know you’re worth it. Help me find my way back to you. I kept you in my gaze as you became smaller and smaller, a speck on the horizon of my awareness. I told myself it wasn’t right. You should fill my field of vision the way you once did when you were my everything. I should be studying the colors that glimmer in your eyes. I should focus on the curves of your face ever fixed on me. Inspired, I look at you, and I see you are no longer looking at me. You are concerned with the waves building beside us. I glance over and now I notice them too. How did they become so daunting when I saw them as ripples just moments ago?
I reach for you and pull the water behind me, propelling myself toward you, toward your open arms. But I am going nowhere. Nowhere toward where I want to be. An undercurrent is tugging me further from you, from the shore, from everything I know to be steady and safe and good for me. How did I drift away so easily? I tell myself we’re gonna be okay. I lie over and over. You become smaller in the distance and my resistance is waning. We’re so happy when we’re far away, I lie over and over. I can be me, I say, and you can be you. We weren’t meant for this. This separation is defeating us, and yet I cannot figure a way to move closer. Don’t ask how I got here. Just help me get to where you are. The nothingness surrounding me is overwhelming, draining, nearly impossible to overcome. How can I ever conquer the distance between us? Where will I find the strength to do more than just tread water? This is what matters now. You are what matters now. Forgive me, over and over.
Life’s journey is best when made with someone whom you trust, a person you can learn from and hopefully teach occasionally. Elika fuses fuzzed-out textures and geometric electronics while forging a pathway through Love, Tragedy, and Defeat.
