elle captivates with their introspective EP ‘Unrequited Love Songs’, seamlessly blending electronica and singer-songwriter elements to create a poignant exploration of loss, love, and personal reflection.
Blending electronica with a distinct singer-songwriter vibe, elle is exploring their feelings of loss, opening up to love and the fear that comes along with it. Using this EP to confront their darkest emotions and impulses, elle is playful in their experimentation, while maintaining a sense of grief and desperation.
There’s a darkness to Unrequited Love Songs, particularly on tracks like here we are again and lying in the dark with my necklace on. The production is sparse but intentional, leaving a large amount of space for listeners to imprint their own particular emotions and experiences onto elle’s music.
There’s the slight sensibility of Joji, as well as the earliest incarnations of Billie Eilish. Somewhat the definition of bedroom pop, elle is solitary and isolated in their production, though reaching out and welcoming others to join them.
More Happy Than Not feels like a diary entry. A stream of consciousness laced with regret and resentment. Remove me from your memory / like I was never there. There’s still the foreboding chorus synth, but there is a slightly more uplifting sense to More Happy Than Not. Maybe a sense of humour that pierces through the darker emotions.
Roses After The Rain is the opposite. The most vulnerable moment of Unrequited Love Songs, restrained and broken as elle muses over a lost love. Simplistic, with a chorus that feels the most hooky of all the Unrequited Love Songs, Roses After The Rain is a lo-fi ballad teeming with heartache that is impossible to hide. Which is perhaps the point.
Quiet and experimental, The Centre swims in and out of emotion; beginning with sorrow and leading into an uneasy, unsure melody that lies on top of subtle percussion. Once again restrained, The Centre is an unattached reflection on a past connection, less overt in its sadness and more detached in its recollection.
elle has hit their stride in terms of style and production. Unrequited Love Songs is a cohesive journey, one that is fit to accompany a quiet night crying on the floor, remembering all of your past loves.
Listen to Unrequited Love Songs below.
Review by Caitlin Norris
