The Nomadic Confessions of Ela Minus

In 2020, Ela Minus found herself unable to afford her rent. The Colombian producer and songwriter had been living in New York City for several years, making music and building synthesizers for the boutique instrument maker Critter & Guitari, but staying put had become too expensive. Instead of establishing roots in a more affordable locale, Minus began traveling around without a permanent base, booking a week here or a month there. She spent time in CDMX and in the mountains of México, back home in Bogotá, out in London, roaming with her rack of synthesizers and drum machines in tow. 

Minus had no plan, but her nomadic lifestyle seemed to inspire her production and songwriting. “There's something to be said about being a female, going it alone, and having the tools to allow me to make whatever I want,” she tells me on a video call from Mexico City. “Because then I can go deeper, without thinking about anybody else’s opinion.” She began polishing her sense of melody and developing more complex compositions than the ones she offered on Acts of Rebellion, her rousing 2020 debut album on Domino Records. Minus had promised herself she would sing more, so she created a mellifluous universe of techno and pop melodies for Día, her second album. After working for awhile in Los Angeles, she figured Día was complete and booked a week in a Seattle apartment right off the Puget Sound. She’d been there before, and she knew its beauty would give her some perspective .

Looking out onto the Pacific inlet and at the mountains above her, she realized that there was a block between her and what she really needed to say. “I listened back to the demos, and I was like, This is a front,” she says. “Not consciously, but I was using my go-tos, which is what I did on the first record, where it was just kind of level-one lyrics. I was feeling way more things that I realized I wasn’t singing about yet.”