Elly Kace: "Nothing" ft. Jasmine Mendoza
Brooklyn singer Elly Kace has announced her concept album Nothing I see means anything to be released November 19th 2021. The LP finds Kace, an acclaimed and award-winning opera singer, breaking free from the disciplines she’s spent her life studying for something boundary-pushing and danceable. It’s a pop album for the seekers inspired by Björk, Kate Bush, and Lady Gaga. It finds catharsis in the journey and acceptance in not having all the answers, a reflection of her equally fierce love for yoga. The songs on the album are as open and as full of life as Kace.
The songs on Nothing I see means anything came out of necessity. During her first European audition tour as an operatic soprano, Kace had to flee Italy at the start of the pandemic to go back to her New York City home. “At the time I was feeling excited about the prospect of a European career, and then to experience such a world-changing, death-filled thing instead was really difficult,” says Kace. “But it was a painful lesson that there is never any control, ever.” Back in her Brooklyn apartment, the paradigm shifting upheaval though difficult, gave Kace the time to recenter herself. A certified JM Vinyasa yoga instructor, Kace began obsessing over her daily Sanskrit meditations as well as two phrases from the influential book A Course in Miracles: “Nothing I see means anything” and “Bless them all.” These phrases would serve as her North Star for writing the entire album.
With her operatic career on hold, Kace knew she needed an outlet. “I was definitely depressed and sort of intuitively started writing and expressing that as a healing thing for myself,” says Kace. Initially Nothing I see means anything started out of vocal loops with Kace dissecting each syllable in those two phrases. “Mantra is a powerful healing practice because the sounds resonate in our bodies,” says Kace. “Music also literally gets in your cells, so I took care that the vocal meditations drove the rest of the writing like a secret medicine. They became a tool for me to literally vibrate each self accepting sentiment into the physical bodies of whoever listens.”
Take the highlight track “Nothing,” which boasts darkly enveloping synths and Kace singing, “My pain was a magnet / now words fly from my body like / nothing.” As a lyricist, Kace dissects her physical place in an often unfeeling world, singing of addiction, loss, illness, the male gaze and subverting expectations. Though this is wholly accessible and physically immediate pop music and each single stands on its own, this album is meant as a healing whole. Songs like the intro “Are You Ready?” and “Meditation” serve as guideposts for Kace’s sonic and thematic ambition. The first half is a frustrated sisyphean grind of inescapable grooves and epic operatic descants until the fresh guitar in “Anything” breaks through. After the mid-album meditation, the record shifts towards angelic vocals, tibetan bowls, and beautifully haunting sound design.
Ultimately, Nothing I see means anything aims to unlock both the wild and free parts of ourselves as well as the good within us. On the lovely Carole King-indebted “Bless,” Kace shows her range as a writer and vocalist, singing, “Our hearts hurry / running far away / addicted to drama and being the victim / What if we just breathe?” Explaining the song, Kace says, “It's become clearer to me through making this record that all we are meant to do in this life is bless each other. That's really it, but the simple things are also the hard things. I’ve learned I can’t bless in a genuine way until I’m willing to face my shadows and find a way to accept them and if I can, love them.”
“Nothing I see means anything woke me up to the limitations I place on myself,” says Kace. “It feels so good to get honest and listen to my creative energy without worrying about doing things ‘right’, fitting in boxes, or mourning how things “should” be. I hope it offers something liberating.” Nothing I see means anything will release on 11/19/2021.
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