SOMA Magazine SOMA Fall Fashion Issue Oct 15 | Page 89

Music

Elohim
TEXT BY LILLIAN DONG
PHOTOGRAPH BY DARIAN ZAHEDI

Hailing from Los Angeles, Elohim, Hebrew for God, sings with from drug dependency. The name Elohim itself represents the
god-like control and confidence. Although her latest singles messages encapsulated in the songs of shunning an incongruous
“She Talks Too Much” and “Xanax” have been released by B3SCI fate in favor of a perfect inner world, existence, and liberation.
Records for two months, they’ve gained popularity, generous “She Talks Too Much” and “Xanax” present unique, synthpopreviews and various re-mixes by artists and bands such as COIN, esque, and highly polarized shouts into the void.
BECOME and Gosh Pith, and it’s easy to see why.
Elohim has been playing piano for much of her life and started
“She Talks Too Much” is an indie-electro pop song on the calm singing since she was nine; her influences come from her sounds,
of mind disturbed by a woman who, as the title suggests, “talks surroundings, and musicians ranging from Rachmaninoff and
too much.” As she weaves with her lush-yet-sugared voice on Debussy to Thom Yorke. In the past, she has collaborated with
the relational problems, she brings an element of maturity that many musicians and worked on a handful of projects. Most
holds the song together and prevents it from being melodra- recently, she’s worked with Casey Veggies in “All That Gold.”
matic and mundane. She sings with a yearning of closure from
Elohim describes her music as “experiential” and “refined
nihilism and meaninglessness embodied in her conflict, and as yet obscure,” akin to an “eleven-pointed star, with many sides
she describes her toxic experience with the titular woman of the and a strong core at the center,” which is clearly expressed in
song, she enjoys it dangerously for both the high of confronta- her work: she utilizes ethereal indie-pop but what is most salient
tion and release provided when the pain ends, as we hear in the and connective is again, the universality she brings. She loves
repetition of “tiger restless” and “system’s empty.”
people: she adores what her songs can mean to them as a fresh,
There’s an interesting juxtaposition, not just in the schizo- fantastical journey and the inspiration people in turn give to her,
phrenic lull between false peace and then conflict as shown by as she states, “everyone around me genuinely sparks my interest.
the belligerent verses followed by “I’m on a good one now” and The way they interact and dissociate. What makes one cry, while
“Coast is clear,” but also in Elohim’s voice itself compared with the other laughs. The differences between us and the similarithe material sung on: her voice is sweet, siren-like and hearkens ties. Love. Love is fascinating and beautiful. Life is crazy. Life is
to that of Grimes or Bjork, while the lyrics blend carnal instincts beautiful, and life is interesting.”
subdued by self-command. The self-command is ironic; the
And that is what represents Elohim; she sings of one
speaker of the song attempts to defend herself from the increas- experience that transcends as a result of her focus on and
ing domination of the titular woman and her own intoxication immense dedication to her audience. She sings, sensitive to
with the other woman’s abilities of expression. Elohim describes multi-facets and omnisciently as her name suggests. She sings,
it as inspired by “the introverted feeling of not having a voice mixing raw emotions and technical instrumentals. Elohim is
in a room or conversation.” It is a humanly recognized desire of an up-and-coming artist, with new music being developed and
connectivity and the inability to do so combined with the envy, further released in the rest of the year and a complete body
coping, and escapism that arise from it. “Xanax” is similar in of work in the future; each song will “create an experience”
its desire for independence; Elohim chants, more mellowed, on distinctly Elohim.
her “panic attack” that is destroying her coupled with her escape
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