Having experienced the hopeful highs and crashing lows of an all-consuming previous relationship, the West London-based musician Eleni Drake has emerged out the other side more confident than ever of both her worth as a human and her outlook as an artist.
As a testament to both arrives tender new LP 'Chuck: a record that doesn't shy away from the sadness, but that also puts its foot down, pushing Eleni's sonic palette into richer new territory as she finds revelation and growth amongst the rubble.
Recorded at Voltaire Studios in Stockwell, it marked the first time she'd ventured out of her home set- up, recruiting a full cast of musicians to realise her vision and bringing in producer Frank Colucci (Rose Gray, Sea Girls) to assist her behind the desk. It feels like the perfect time for Eleni to be making this advancement. Named after the romantic lead in Pushing Daisies, Chuck partly nods to the precariousness of the relationship at its centre.
Together, Chuck's tracks paint a stunningly human portrait of love and pain, and how those two states can interconnect in the most disarming and sometimes destructive of ways. But it also plants its feet in the ground, building a nurturing musical world to fall into and find solace within; one that, like its author, realises that - slowly, eventually - things will be OK.
As a testament to both arrives tender new LP 'Chuck: a record that doesn't shy away from the sadness, but that also puts its foot down, pushing Eleni's sonic palette into richer new territory as she finds revelation and growth amongst the rubble.
Recorded at Voltaire Studios in Stockwell, it marked the first time she'd ventured out of her home set- up, recruiting a full cast of musicians to realise her vision and bringing in producer Frank Colucci (Rose Gray, Sea Girls) to assist her behind the desk. It feels like the perfect time for Eleni to be making this advancement. Named after the romantic lead in Pushing Daisies, Chuck partly nods to the precariousness of the relationship at its centre.
Together, Chuck's tracks paint a stunningly human portrait of love and pain, and how those two states can interconnect in the most disarming and sometimes destructive of ways. But it also plants its feet in the ground, building a nurturing musical world to fall into and find solace within; one that, like its author, realises that - slowly, eventually - things will be OK.
