“I’ve got four faces,” Elliphant declares. “One of them is the crazy club girl. Then, there’s my hip-hop side. I can also get all R&B on you. A lot of the time, I just feel like a hippie.”
All four of those “faces” peek through the Swedish pop maverick’s second EP, One More [Kemosabe Records/Record Company TEN]. It’s a musical patchwork that’s as warm as it is wild. After the success of her first stateside EP, Look Like You Love It, Elliphant holed up in Los Angeles for the majority of 2014, locking herself in the studio and writing countless songs. During the process, the girl legally known as Ellinor Olovsdotter experienced something of a revelation.
“I want to be an artist that reflects reality in everything—good and bad,” she admits. “Life is always changing, and I want to be a reflection of what life is. You never have to choose black and white; you can stay in the grey zone. While you’re there, be experimental as long as you’re true to who you are. Music isn’t meant to be solid. It’s fluid. The music is a little more naked now. It really shows who I am.”
Teaming up with Grammy Award-winning producer Joel Little [Lorde, Broods], her approach yielded the intoxicating, yet intricate title track “One More” featuring MØ. As soon as she unveiled the single, it became the “#1 Most Tweeted Song on Twitter”, while its clever and cinematic music video racked up over 500,000 views in less than month.
A snappy beat kicks off this ride as the vibe veers between rap cadence and electro pop sheen. At the center of it all, Elliphant offers an unbridled and unfiltered vignette into her life. The song’s infectious exterior belies its dark underbelly.
“It’s about my girls at home,” she continues. “We have this pretty intense crew in Sweden of six or seven girls. It’s a bittersweet group. We all come from the same part of Stockholm. We all have single mothers with problems. When we go out drinking or partying, we talk about fucked up things. It’s friendship; but it’s also loneliness. Usually, only one of us has money, but we drink together and let it all out.”
On the other end of the spectrum, she examines love for the first time on the shimmering, yet sassy “Never Been In Love”. Once again, it’s balanced by her ability to assume multiple perspectives and view life from numerous angles.
“I was alone in L.A. for a month,” she recalls. “I got so inspired by the idea of falling in love. I never wrote about love before. Now, I’m writing about it because I want to start exposing my system to the idea of being with someone. It’s a break from the fear and bullshit of what goes on in this world. If you open the doors to the mystery of this planet, you can experience so much.”
That vulnerability somewhat explains her own musical boundlessness – leading to collaborations with everybody from Skrillex to Bunji Garlin and Diplo. As she made waves overseas in 2012, well-known producer Dr. Luke also fell under her spell, signing her in collaboration with Record Company TEN to his own Kemosabe Records in the United States. 2014 saw her hit the road supporting Charli XCX on a nationwide tour that packed houses nightly, exposing her to a whole new audience along the way. Plus, Elliphant has won over top tastemakers including Pitchfork, FADER, and many more.
Ultimately though, Elliphant wants everybody to enjoy One More with her. She smiles, “It’s music for any occasion. There are happy moments. There’s energy. There’s darkness. I hope it can be your soundtrack.”