Recently named ‘Best Alternative Artist’ at the 2022 Aotearoa Music Awards, Wellington-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vera Ellen has released her brand new album, Ideal Home Noise — out now via Flying Nun Records.
Ideal Home Noise is a record unearthed from much introspection and an attempt to find some comedy and lightness in an otherwise dark period for Vera Ellen. With two "voices” battling throughout the album, the instrumentation is sometimes light — featuring synths and electronic drums — and sometimes heavy — with ballad-like piano and raw vocals.
After the critical success of her 2021 album, It’s Your Birthday — which earned the artist both the ‘Best Alternative Artist’ award at the 2022 AMA’s as well as a 2022 Taite Award nomination — Vera’s momentum is unstoppable with her new 13 track album raring to go. “If It's Your Birthday was about relationships and love and strife between myself and others; then Ideal Home Noise is about love and strife between myself and myself.“.
The record was tracked at Wellington studio, The Surgery, with the talented multi-instrumentalist Ben Lemi (of Trinity Roots, French For Rabbits and Dawn Diver fame) on production and engineering duties. “Ben helped bring the record to life from my initial demos in a very organic way” says Vera.
Of the first single from the album, ‘Carpenter’ Vera has said “We are all quietly fighting our own battles. There is a feeling I get about having to fight them alone, keeping them close to my chest in shame. But I think we really all need to learn how to lean on each other. We would be more compassionate people, if we had the slightest window into someone else's experience; their pain, their fear, their life. Carpenter is inspired by that. It's a desperate cry, but there's a triumph in being able to ask for help.”
The ‘Carpenter’ music video is the first in a series of three; and introduces Vera Ellen in a vampiric youth-sucking role. All three videos in this album series are directed and produced by prolific film-makers, Sports Team.
About the video, Annabel Kean of Sports Team has said "It's been a total dream working with Vera Ellen and the band on the visuals for their new music. Sports Team are massive Vera Ellen fans (I was the person crying tears of joy when they opened for Marlon Williams at The Civic last month) and have been hankering to do a music video series for an artist for ages. Please enjoy our ode to Near Dark (1987) in the clip for 'Carpenter' - we hope it leaves you confused enough to want to see what happens next, but not so confused that you feel like you've just watched Tenet (2020) for the first time."
Finding humour in self-loathing, award-winning Vera Ellen recently returned with the second guitar driven single, ‘Lenny Says’ from the upcoming album.
"I wrote Lenny Says to make fun of myself at rock bottom. It was actually initially for my album Beat Yr Name (2018) but I felt it was too cheesy at the time. Now, I can see the humour in it. The two verses were genuinely written three years apart — though clearly the angst did not dwindle. It's a track for us whining broke losers with unattainable dreams; having a laugh and a moan at the same time."
About the video - the second in the series of three - Vera Ellen says "If you cried in Carpenter, you will scream in Lenny Says. My band joins me for some diabolical plotting and scheming... but what exactly are we planning?? What we do best of course. And, listen, I won't have any of your judgement. We all do crazy things to maintain our youth and glory!"
Released just this week, ‘Broadway Junction’ was the final heart-wrenching single from the artist’s upcoming album, Ideal Home Noise. Straying from her typically practised restraint, this new single showcases Vera’s incredible vocal character and range and truly hits the listener where it hurts.
Broadway Junction came to Vera on a cold Autumn’s day in New York. “Returning home from the laundromat with a heavy sack of clothes on my back and about 100 layers of clothes, I started humming the melody and next thing I knew the entire song was before me. When a song comes in like that it always feels extra special. As for the subject matter, it's all there, ain't much to add."
On the final instalment of the video trilogy, made with the support of New Zealand on Air, Vera said the following — “Performing that song in a dark warehouse with my band around me and my brother at the piano felt like a strange fever dream that was the last stage in completing the song’s journey for me. It was like Sports Team climbed inside my brain."
About their latest Sports Team produced/directed video, Callum Devlin and Annabel Kean say “And so the trilogy concludes! This has been a wild and rewarding ride, made all the more wonderful by Vera and her band secretly being really great actors (excluding drummer and DOP Samuel - his skills were no secret). As is the Sports Team way, our visual accompaniments to an artists’ songs are there to compliment rather than reinforce. That’s how you end up with a spooky funny glampire (glam vampire) clip to go with Broadway/Junction - a stunning ballad that’s heavy as hell.
Thank you so much to our lovely extras who were surprisingly chill about being gagged and zip tied. Special mention to total star Phoenix Connolly who brought all the shiny horror of her Evil Dead days to this poor panicked character <3”
On the name of the album, Ideal Home Noise, Vera explains that she came across the phrase in a book, while house-sitting a Malibu property formerly occupied by The Beach Boys. Since then, the words have been recycled through various notebooks and phone apps, somehow remaining in the artist’s subconscious all these years later.
In a very personal statement about Ideal Home Noise, Vera Ellen has summarised “My songs have been my friends, my lovers, my enemies. I have been their biggest critic and fan and they have been mine. And as for this album, you will hear my pain up close, but you can take comfort knowing I wouldn't trade it for the world. So here we go, to another album. One of many more (I hope).”
Ideal Home Noise is out now digitally and on both red or black vinyl and CD via Flying Nun Records.