Ela Minus - acts of rebellion
A deep sigh is what you hear first on Ela Minus' debut album acts of rebellion- as if she breaths out of relief. The track is titled N19 5NF. These numbers are the coordinates of the Whittington Hospital in London, where Ela Minus (born as Gabriela Jimeno in Bogotà, Colombia) almost lost her life. The sound of the breath symbolises her awakening and the start of a new beginning. The minute she has escaped from death sounds like molecules floating around like restorative energy, helping her to recover. Her fight against death is her first rebellious act she points out. As the album title suggest the importance of rebelling is the recurrent theme throughout it, unveiled by her personal rebellious actions: against authorities, dominant men of past relationships and most importantly against capitalism and colonialism, which have had a huge effect on her motherland Colombia for decades. Thus, her belief in the necessity of acting rebellious towards corrupt political systems is Ela's main message. She claims that anyone who grew up in Colombia like her, having to endure all the conflicts between rebels and the regime, the drug-war, gets automatically politicised. However, she thinks that rebellions can constitute themselves in many daily acts, no matter how small they are, as resistance grows from everyday practice.
The track they told us it was hard, but they were wrong is one of the musical highlights in the album by which I was captivated immediately. She signs her lyrics in a choppy, robotic, almost paralysed style passing on these insights:
You fools trying to go deeper
Don't you see how easy it should be?
Everyone told us it's hard
But they were wrong
When you love, you love it all
And nothing is impossible
Ela Minus argues that there is no reason to fear the desire for change and wanting to stand up. She ensures us of her conviction in the power of activism singing “You won't make us stop” like a militant mantra in the track megapunk. “I want people to feel like they have the power to change the world” is her mission statement.
As do her dark and provocative lyrics, the sound of her music likewise pursues a similar effect upon the listener. The second track el cielo no es de nadie is the showcase song of acts of rebellion. The room immediately fills up with a driven beat, smooth synthesizers and Ela's whispery voice singing in Spanish.
She uses four-on-the-floor beats (steady, uniformly accented beat in 4/4 time) with clattering percussions, buzzing synthesizers and a drum machine creating a clubby dark atmosphere. It’s dark touch is also influenced by Ela's Punk-background, having played in a hardcore-band at the age of 13. None of her music is produced with software or computer. She only uses hardware built and set up by herself, so she is able to operate her equipment by heart. Ela received her profound technical knowledge during her studies as a jazz drummer at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Not only did she receive classical training in composing, she also learnt about the technical procedure how to design and build synthesizers. Being the only woman and having the affinity to punk-music, she felt as an outsider in her class. However, she found comfort dancing in the clubs of New York where she fell in love with electronic music. Ela aptely captures the passion of spending long nights on the dance floors in dominique: “No quiero dormir hasta que salga el sol” (I cannot sleep until the sun goes up).
Although the record predominately consists of dancy Techno-Pop tracks, Ela adequately complemented her record with spheric ambient tracks such as let them have the internet and do whatever you want, all the time. Her change in genres and tempo makes this record wholesome and very diverse, thus acts of rebellion is a great mixture of dark electronic club beats, techno-pop, melodies and Ela's mystic voice.
Listen to acts of rebellion on Spotify:
