Where ominous, fuzzed-out textures and energetic, geometric electronics meet, you'll find Brooklyn's Elika. The power duo of multimedia artists Evagelia Maravelias and Brian Wenckebach--now expanded into a four-piece with the additions of Khaya Lou (from Mahogany) and Andrew Kwasny--have quietly recorded and released a torrent of adventurous music since 2006, earning recognition the old fashioned way. It paid off. Elika have toured internationally, and were recently handpicked to support shoegazers Asobi Seksu and revered dream-electro musician and producer Ulrich Schnauss, who went on to describe Elika as "an incredibly exciting, radical fusion of shoegaze and electronica elements."
Elika's latest--Girls, Be Serious--is a trilogy of 7 inch records that will be revealed, one by one, over the next year. The records place intense emotional content into an ocean of complex programmed rhythms a la Grimes and M83, with an emphasis on honey-coated vocals and washes of distant, dreamy synths and guitars. Nowhere is this more evident than on the lead-off single, the instantly hummable "Moving Faster" which features a soaring chorus and a driving, relentless heartbeat. Providing a counterpoint to the first single, is the gorgeous "Bury," which pairs Beach Boys styled layers with a fragile and melancholic lead vocal. Taken together, this first part of Girls, Be Serious is pure, visceral electrogaze vibes done right.
