On Repeat: They Told Us It Was Hard, But They Were Wrong By Ela Minus Is The Best Electro House Track Of The Year (So Far)
Tristan Young @talltristan
Sometimes you don’t appreciate something till it’s gone. In other cases you don’t really notice its absence until it returns. As our concepts of stability, understanding, and certainty have steadily eroded over the years, and at a hyper accelerated rate in these last months, it’s increasingly hard to remember such creature comforts. They Told Us It Was Hard, But They Were Wrong by Ela Minus strikes back against such uncertain tides with a jolting burst of clarity. Minus is a Colombian born musician recently signed to Domino Records. She released the single as something of an announcement/celebration of the new record deal. Operating under the collective pop culture radar more or less, her new single is a steely and assured take on electro house. The track is cultivated form atmospherics that pull from casual trance and dramatic purpose, finding a compelling harmony in between. Soft and far reaching synth pads form the foundation as buzzing, moulded static traces a frenzied but laser focused, linear path. Minus’ voice is icy and distant, far enough to be out in space and with the beating regularity of a pulsar. Her voice leaves wispy echoes like frost sublimating into vapour. Minus crafts and conducts her lyrics with a causal authority, “If you have to go to the bottom of a hole to find what broke, just let it go”. There’s a nonchalant certitude to how she speaks, casually opining on fundamental, but deeply buried, truths as if they were plainly evident. She is detached and isolated, but not from us, merely our moment in time. Indeed she cultivates a great deal of solidarity with the listener in her own wonderfully indirect way. As if reaching from the future into our turbulent present she is graciously assuring that of course we are going to get through this moment, even if our issues exacerbated by the reality of the pandemic make them seem insurmountable. As those static flutters assert themselves further, she simplifies a seemingly endless thicket of complexities, “Everyone told us it was hard, but they were wrong”. The gravity of such a phrase is obscured today by our inability to tell up from down, but Minus’ view is not so myopic. Her words can prove prophetic, if we want them to. Those calming synth tides eventually modulate their notation, indicating the precipice of change is at hand; be warned and be ready, they communicate. Shortly after, those fractious synth screeches rip open a hole large enough for much more theatrical and urgent sequencers to push through. It’s evocative of something like a wormhole, the hypothetical pinnacle of natural engineering. It’s implications that your point in time, or at least your point of view need not be fixed. Minus is already on the other side, and what she has found is fascinating.