Meet Elly Kace

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elly Kace. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elly below.

Hi Elly, so happy to have you on the platform and I think our readers are in for a treat because you’ve got such an interesting story and so much insight and wisdom. So, let’s start with a topic that is relevant to everyone, regardless of industry etc. What do you do for self-care and how has it impacted you?

I notice that my self care needs shift day to day and moment to moment. I am learning to embrace the fluid nature of that each day. The art of this awareness comes from my yoga and meditation practice. I do prioritize sitting in meditation every day as a way to help guide me to what kind of care I may need in a given moment, and practicing asana rigorously multiple times per week.

Sometimes the self care I need looks like sitting at the piano and allowing my hands to play whatever they want, allowing my voice to sing whatever it wants – without judgment. Sometimes it looks like going for a ten mile run listening to hyper pop. Sometimes it looks like taking a nap. Sometimes it looks like saying ‘no’.

I notice the more I allow the moment to guide me to what I need, the more compassionate I am to those around me. This is a vital tool as a band leader, producer and sound healing facilitator. So often we come into the room believing our personal idea is best, and we cling to it – and expect everyone else to just fall right in step. But the creative process does not work well under such expectations. It thrives in softer spaces where collaborators feel safe to take risks and explore.

Just as I care for myself – listening to what I need in the moment, I do my best to extend care to others. Meeting everyone where they are, meeting the needs of the moment. The music and art and connections that flow through this space is always magical and heart exploding.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Rooted in the community-building power of music, Brooklyn based singer and composer Elly Kace loosened the grip on her acclaimed opera career during lockdown, taking an unconventional leap into composition and production. Enhancing her voice through dense layering and electronic effects, experimenting with synthesizers, drum machines and sound healing instruments, she began to build a sound that could seamlessly oscillate between classical and mainstream musical textures, creating a new style of baroque pop sound.

In 2023 she released her latest full-length, Object Permanence – excavating her grief from the pandemic and turning it into something healing and stunning. But with her latest EP if i ask enough could you love me, Kace leaps into radical honesty, frustration about her experiences as a classically trained musician, female bodied human, and recovering perfectionist in a sonic swirl of textures that harken to the romantic period and evoke musical impressionism.

“No one ever stays forever.” Kace explains. “The perfectionist in me wonders, if I sacrifice enough of myself, would they stay? Maybe I work towards perfection because a part of me believes if I am perfect I have a chance at feeling loved?” The first song Kace wrote for this album “Prelude (i did my best)” dives into her fear of abandonment and scarcity. “My little mind is easily confused, and the endeavor of excellence in music became a substitute for my own inherent worth. I did my best. It was never enough. As a result, I couldn’t believe in enoughness – even outside of music.” The song has an intensity to it despite its warmth, with lush and highly detailed production – Kace’s voice floats above the fray in the chorus, singing the simple affirmation, “I did my best.”

She found beauty while writing the song “if I ask,” about a group of teenage girls taking selfies by the lake. “The impulse to capture the ephemeral is a deep, warm, ancient sensation that still exists today” she says. “I am particularly enamored with our impulses to capture our own likeness, when we feel our own beauty from within our spines so potently we reach for a way to capture it. As though it will keep us immortal. I strive to feel that self celebration as much as I can as a way of reclaiming my femininity on my own terms” On the track, which boasts a 4 minute long Beatles-meets-Sigus Ros build, ending in a swirling and soul-shattering climax, she sings, “One foot in the lake/ taking pictures of her hair/ til she finds something beautiful”

Elsewhere, in “Enough,” she dives into the self-doubt of her healing journey. She sings in multiple polyphonic layers over experimental drums (Aaron Edgcomb) and ambient strings (Darian Donovan Thomas and Isaac Levien), trumpets (Allison Philips) and guitars (Jack Broza), “Maybe I am / Maybe I am not / What if Am / Maybe I am not”. Kace says of the track, “Enough explores the frequencies of anxiety/enoughness” she explains, “the inevitable burnout of existence that sometimes offers a window of insight to escape through – to wake up into – an opportunity for liberation.” The song features some of her most experimental compositional writing yet, evoking artists like Bjork, Dirty Projectors and Roomful of Teeth.

“Could you love me” captures Kace’s radical self acceptance and feminine rage in a gentle lilting 60’s love song. She croons over layers of her own voice, an arpeggiated synth, vibraphone and layered hand percussion, “I just couldn’t practice my face this time/ could you love me even so? / Climb the willow and don’t tell a soul / That I ran out of tears a long time ago / Could you love me even so?”

“This is the first full project I have ever attempted as a solo producer” she says. “I wish you were different,” a song about the ways in which the world is divided, showed Kace’s versatility as a creator. “It needed to come from me, and that made it so easy to know what musicians I needed to come play. Mostly because I wanted to paint with the sounds” she says. “And the colors I needed for IWYWD were marimba, effected strings and synths to help remind people that we are all angels – even those of us in wolf’s clothes” The track features two new york power house talents, Percussionist Aaron Edgcomb and violinist Darian Donovan Thomas.

“If I ask enough could you love me? is a real question I accidentally ask others all day every day,” she says. “The music contains my personal explorations of how my divine feminine is stomped out by my own mind – conditioned by a system designed to keep us all in line – a system that is killing children and our planet daily. ”

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Kindness, flexibility and humility are so valuable to both give and receive. We are all learning and doing our best in the moment with what we have- and when we can see that clearly and operate from there, the proper actions to take become very clear. And those actions usually are for everyone’s best.

I am still learning so much on my own journey, so I am unsure what advice I can offer beyond remaining open and receptive to change in each moment. I will also say having a strong sense of self and discernment is a prerequisite to this receptivity. It all exists in a delicate balance.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

Whenever I am in a rut, I come back to two books: Loving what is by Byron Catie and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Loving what is helps to remind me to question my thoughts and feelings before believing them. It makes me ask “is this true?” until I get to the truth, no matter how inconvenient. From there, I can get to center. A New Earth reminds me of my purpose here – healing the moment by waking up over and over again and sharing what I learn along the way in case it helps anyone else on their journey to awakening.

When I get caught up in the illusion of success on capitalistic terms these books bring me back to truth and soul and heart.

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Katelyn White

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