FEATURE:
Modern-Day Queens
Eli & Fur
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I wanted to…
PHOTO CREDIT: SJ Spreng
spent some time with Eli & Fur, as they are in the middle of a tour. In June, on 21st, they play in New York. Six days later, they play in Bournemouth. Quite different in terms of feel and scenery, they head back to the U.S. in July. You can check their dates here. Eli & Fur are a D.J. and Electronic producer duo comprising Eliza Noble and Jennifer Skillman. They are based in London. Even though their most recent album was Dreamscapes of 2024, they have conduced some interviews fairly recently and I am a fan of what they do. An incredible duo that everyone should know about. I am going to start by heading back to some older interviews. Starting out with GRAMMY and their 20211 interview with the duo. Found in the Wild is their debut album. GRAMMY note how, “With clubs closed and all plans out the window, they finally reached their destination by revisiting their roots”:
“To better understand British duo Eli & Fur's debut album, Found In The Wild, it might help to watch Into the Wild. The film adaptation of Jon Krakauer's 1996 non-fiction book tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a then-recent college graduate who rejected modern society by adventuring solo across North America into the Alaskan wilderness, supposedly in search of enlightenment. Before his death in approximately August 1992, McCandless sought shelter from the snowy elements in an abandoned bus, documenting his life through self-portraits and journaling.
Into the Wild, Eliza Noble, a.k.a. Eli, tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom, is one of her favorite movies. (She also loves its Eddie Vedder-composed soundtrack.) "I definitely relate to that, wanting to escape," she muses. At the moment, she and partner Jennifer Skillman, a.k.a. Fur, are holed up in their own creative refuge on the other side of the world, in Sussex, South East London, in a giant wooden shed turned studio which to them feels more like a sauna on one of the hottest days in recent memory. The studio, non-weatherproof as it may be, has served as its own frontier, a lawless land where genres, deadlines and plans don't exist, and where creativity has free rein. It's no Alaska, but perhaps it's helped Eli & Fur answer some questions of their own: Who are we? Where do we fit?
They've pondered over that last one, especially, for nearly all the nine years that Eli & Fur the project have existed. Before then, they were "proper cheese pop" songwriters and vocalists, as Fur calls it, who after spending countless nights in the club evolved into DJs and producers of their own, culminating in their 2013 debut, "You're So High." Since then, the duo's profile has increased with releases on dance labels including Defected, Spinnin' Deep, Anjunadeep and their own NYX Music. Still, as they shared in a statement, doubters thought their combination of pop-structured vocals and club tracks wouldn't work.
Split into a dual showcase—Found represents their songwriting roots, while In the Wild shows off their club side—Found In The Wild is the musical whole of Eli & Fur, proving that both can co-exist to beautiful, emotional results. With all tracks either created or finished during lockdown, a dark, moody energy surges throughout its rolling melodies, emphasized by lyrics that reflect the sadness ("Come Back Around"), uncertainty ("Broken Parts") and existentialism ("Are We Even Human") of having everything you know and love turned upside down. By stepping back and trusting their instincts, Eli & Fur were able to recenter themselves and move forward. As Eli sums it up: "You have to get lost to be found."
How has being home for the last 16 months affected your relationship with music?
Fur: When Coronavirus happened I came back from L.A. to be with my family, and I've literally been in this shed for the last year making music everyday. It's been incredible because I haven't had this [much] time before to fully be creative and not have all these crazy deadlines and touring. We've also been making music that we wouldn't usually because of what's been going on in the world. Being able to come in here and make different genres with no planned outcome or release or whatever—just purely create—I love that.
Eli: That's so true. When you're at home and you know you're going to DJ on the weekends, you often have it in your mind that you're going to test this track out. You're thinking from that club perspective, because that's where you're spending a lot of your time. At the beginning of the pandemic we were in separate places and we had to make music remotely, so we'd sent stuff back and forth and—
Fur: It was a new way of working for us.
Eli: Yeah, it was a crazy experience… Even though we're dying to get back to touring now, the silver lining in this has been being able to get ahead of ourselves.
Did you experience any existential anxiety? The idea of, "I'm a DJ/producer, but who am I while none of that's happening?"
Eli: We both struggled through the whole thing. It's been difficult, especially as our income comes from touring, but it was scary because for the first three months, it felt like a real loss of identity. What am I without this? It was weird. When everything gets stripped away from you and you don't know when you're going to work again, you essentially don't have a job and no idea of what the future holds… That was really stressful, but it's been amazing that the two of us have supported each other. I have no idea what I would've done had I been on my own.
Fur: I don't think I could do it.
You've been told that meshing your songwriting and club-minded sides wouldn't work, but in the last few years especially, vocal melodic tracks have been thriving in the dance music space. What do you think connects with audiences?
Eli: The emotion on the dancefloor. You can have rolling, amazing tracks that are great to dance to, but the ones that you remember, in our opinion, are the ones that make you stop and listen to lyrics that you relate to… It's certainly a style that not everybody loves, but as you said, it's growing.
Anjunadeep is a perfect example. They're a great label to be on because when you go to an Anjunadeep show or listen to an Anjunadeep artist you're going to get these emotive, beautiful, interesting layered pieces of music which have a lot of meaning. I think that's what people are connecting with.
When was a time that the club most felt like being in the wild?
Eli: My favorite moments are in a dark, more intimate space where the crowd is just right there, vibing with you, and you completely lose yourself. I think a track that really represents that is "Light Up Your Eyes" because… it really communicates that moment. Those moments are really inspiring, when you're all on the same wavelength. The best part about going out is losing yourself and escaping and being somewhere dark where you're not staring at someone in a bright light. It's shadowy and mysterious; you can be whoever you want to be. No one has to know who you are.
Whenever we go out, we're usually going out to DJ. Our concept of a night out is playing music and seeing people's reactions. It's incredible to look at different faces in the crowd and kind of think about who they are, where they come from, what's going on in their minds—
Fur: You're not even having a conversation; it's just a feeling”.
Before bringing things more up to date, let’s head back to 2024 and Fifteen Questions. Speaking with Eli & Fur around the release of Dreamscapes, I am going to end with a recent interview, where Eliza Noble and Jennifer Skillman reflected on the Dreamscapes Remixes album from last year. This year, they have released singles One That You Love, and Strange. I wonder if another album will arrive soon:
“Entering/creating new worlds through music has always exerted a strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?
Fur: I definitely am more listening to the melody than the lyrics, whereas I think Eli is the opposite, she focuses on words more, it's like melodic movement versus poetry. When those things complement each other, it is pure magic and we always strive for that together.
It’s funny how different people latch onto different parts sonically. When we create music, we really do get lost in it. It’s almost like a form of meditation, like time stops.
Sometimes we’ll get so wrapped up in the music, hours will go by and we won’t even notice.
According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?
Fur: We both listened to quite different music growing up. I listened to more 80s synthpop. I definitely think we both go back to music we were listening to around those ages, we both love being able to listen back to old songs and remember exactly how we were feeling the first time we heard it.
Eli: I was a lot more interested in live elements of music, singer songwriter stuff, folk bands, some more emo alternative teenage angst stuff, But it was always rooted in emotion. All that music still has a huge effect on me.
From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the creative process for your album, please.
Fur: It all depends on the song, some songs happen quicker than others, some sit on the shelf for months. Sometimes it’s hard to create the initial magic that happened in the very beginning. We try not to stray too far away from the original ideas we fall in love with. Saying “it’s finished” has always been the hardest part for me, thankfully Eli is brilliant at that.
All the ideas from our new album Dreamscapes started very authentically in moments of inspiration, maybe a hotel room, or sat down with a guitar. Then we took all our favourite ideas into the studio to finish them with a vision for the album sonically.
Do you feel that your music or your work as an artist needs to have a societal purpose or a responsibility to anyone but yourself?
Fur: This is a very interesting question. If you are lucky enough to make music that is totally true to yourself AND it connects on a scale that gives you a career out of it, then that's amazing. But at the point where it doesn't then that's more of a hobby or an outlet for only yourself, which is also great if that's all you are striving for.
For us, we want to be creative but also have a career in music. This sometimes means compromising in small ways. There is something really magical about the listener being able to apply their story and feelings to the music you make so that it can tell a hundred different stories to different listeners.
For that reason we do always consider the listeners when choosing which songs we want to put out in the world, we like to write about our own experiences to the point where people connect.
Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more mundane; tasks?
Fur: Music is more subconscious. So it’s therapeutic in a way that you can lose yourself, let out emotions that perhaps you can’t put into words. It’s a lot more stream of consciousness.
When you sit down to write something you never know what’s going to come from it. That not knowing as well as expressing emotion you may not have been aware of is very freeing and not like anything else”.
Before getting to a new Beatportal chat, in 2024, they spoke with Eli & Fir about a track that started it all for them. They also talked about their new sample pack, Dusk to Dawn. It was their first sample pack, so it was an exciting time for them. If you are not following Eli & Fur, then make sure that you connect with them and check out their music:
“You’re So High (10 Years On)
Eli: So “You’re So High” was a really organic moment for us. At the time, we’d been DJing for a couple of years and we’d started to make our own tracks. I think at the time we were listening to a lot of old Maceo Plex like Under the Sheets, then we were kind of digging back into that old Chicago House sound. The more emotional stuff like Larry Heard The Sun Can’t Compare.
Fur: “Mystery of Love.”
Eli: “Yeah yeah yeah, all that kind of stuff. Those beautiful kind of gritty but emotional tracks are what we were playing in our DJ sets. But at the same time, we were also working at a production pop-house, writing pop-y tracks as our day job.”
“So that really seeped into what we were doing in terms of vocal hooks and using vocals that you can’t get out of your head. I think You’re So High is a perfect example of those two worlds.”
Fur: “It’s like a hybrid or the day job and what we were doing in the evenings, as we tried to figure out our sounds.”
Eli: “And that stayed with us over the last 10 years. When we wrote that song, the chords came first and we had You’re So High as a lyric.”
Fur: “We have these lyric pages where we write all the lyrics, which we still try and do now. I think it’s a great way of writing as you’ll just come up with the lyrics and not have to fill in gibberish with words. But You’re So High was the first thing that came out of Eli’s mouth, and it just stuck.”
Eli: “It stuck, then we had the chords and the vocal. When we started to build things up around it we really kind of dipped into that inspiration of what we were listening to at the time. We wanted it to not be too complicated but lean towards the music we really loved at the time. When you listen to the drums on that they’re really poppy, like when the snare comes in.”
Fur: “It’s a polished sound.”
Eli: “It’s not super gritty, but when the bassline comes in you can hear that inspiration. You can hear what we were inspired by. The older kind of darker, more emotional techno and that kind of thing that was really getting us excited.”
“I think that’s definitely what we try and do: merge those two worlds together. That hooky vocal along with that gritty emotional stuff is why we do what we do and what inspires us.”
“The track really came together in a very organic way, and it took what, a day to make it? And we didn’t touch it after that.”
Fur: We finished it really quickly and didn’t overthink it.
Eli: “We continue to use those ways of making music. We start with the chords and a vocal and we build everything up around that. That’s what we did with You’re So High, one of the first tracks we ever made. It’s nice that it’s helped define how we make things going forward.”
Eli & Fur Producer Tips
In order to retain the magic and the vibe from your best ideas, Eli strongly advocates for finding the focal point of a track and leaving it intact. Fur agrees, and recommends being ruthless and chucking everything else out the window if it doesn’t lend itself to your core idea.
In the same vein, Fur speaks of the importance of keeping it simple. Not only in the production itself, but in the tools used. It’s far too easy to load dozens of plugins into your DAW, when actually, having too many tools in front of you can stunt your creative process. Instead, she recommends using a few choice plugins and sticking to them”.
Last year, in a reflective essay, “Eli & Fur revisit the emotional core of their album 'Dreamscapes' through a powerful series of remixes — exploring connection, creative trust, and the magic of transformation on the dance floor and beyond”. I have taken some selections from it:
“When we first released Dreamscapes, it felt like a deep exhale. The album was shaped in the quiet margins of life, those solitary wanderings between shows, early morning flights, the long stretches on the road where time feels suspended. That space became the heart of the record, and meant a huge deal to us. It's been cathartic and special like it always is putting out a body of work you believe in.
The music was always asking for a second life. A new shape. We love opening the door to other imaginations and seeing where other artists take each track. We’ve always been protective of our songs; they come from such personal places, but there is something thrilling about handing them over to artists we admire, and letting go of control.
Sinca was the first to come back with her take on "Insomnia." We played it first at Audio In San Francisco and it was just so gritty and sounded incredible in that room. We fell in love with this remix then and there – Sinca really is one to watch, she’s absolutely killing it and we love everything she’s doing. We often have our best memory of certain tracks when all the elements come together – it’s a beautiful moment as a DJ when you have the right track, at the right place, in the right time.
Monkey Safari brought their own unique energy too. We have been fans of theirs since we started making music, and we honestly couldn’t believe they picked "Oceanside," the slowest and furthest away from the dance floor on the whole album. We have such a deep connection to this track and it felt so special that they chose it because we knew how beautifully they craft a remix. It's a perfect summer moment now with such a groove, we can imagine this one being played during a golden-hour set somewhere coastal, waves rolling in, the crowd swaying gently in time.
What ties all these remixes together is that each one feels like a continuation of the journey. Dreamscapes was built on that feeling of being alone in a crowd, or together in silence. These new interpretations don’t erase that, they expand it. They give the songs new scenery to wander through, new atmospheres to explore. They honour the original sentiment while offering a totally new lens”.
With new singles and dates in the diary, I do think that the remarkable Eli & Fur are going to go from strength to strength. They are already so acclaimed and respected, yet there are some corners that do not know about them. It would be great to get a new interview for this year from the L.A.-based Eliza Noble and Jennifer Skillman. I really love Eli & Fur so, if they are playing London in the future, I might see if I can catch them. Go and spend some time with this…
WONDERFUL duo.
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