ALTERNATIVE - INDIE ROCK
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“One of the sharpest songwriters to emerge from Aotearoa in a long time. “ - Rolling Stone Magazine

Aotearoa Music Award winning and Taite Award winning artist Vera Ellen was born and raised in Naenae in Te Whanganui-A-Tara/Wellington. She spent her younger years playing and writing music, her first song written at age 8.

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Whilst living in Aotearoa, she played in bands such as grunge 4-piece Maple Syrup and Sweater. Vera relocated to Los Angeles, where she started the band Girl Friday, whose music debuted on indie giant Sub Pop’s sub-label, Hardly Art.

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In early 2020, Vera moved back to Aotearoa during the pandemic, leading to her finishing her solo album, It’s Your Birthday —released on Flying Nun Records in October 2021. This album saw Vera named ‘Best Alternative Artist’ at the 2022 Aotearoa Music Awards.

The 2023 follow-up album, Ideal Home Noise was a record unearthed from much introspection and an attempt to find some comedy and lightness in an otherwise dark period for Vera Ellen. With two "voices” battling throughout the album, the instrumentation is sometimes light — featuring synths and electronic drums — and sometimes heavy — with ballad-like piano and raw vocals. Vera’s momentum was unstoppable with her last 13 track album reaching all corners of the world. “If It's Your Birthday was about relationships and love and strife between myself and others; then Ideal Home Noise is about love and strife between myself and myself.“

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Vera has had multiple tracks featured in the NZ Official Alt Charts, with her single ‘Carpenter’ spending 4 weeks in the charts, peaking at #1 and 2022’s standalone single ‘Homewrecker’, spending 14 weeks in the charts, peaking at #8. Upon release, 2023’s Ideal Home Noise reached #7 on the Official NZ Top 20 Album Charts. With both a feature article and review in New Zealand national newspaper, The Herald (VIVA), and an in depth interview and album feature from award-winning journalist Tony Stamp for Radio New Zealand, the good word has spread far and wide with Vera’s latest piece of work.

Internationally, Vera’s music has reached as far as Australia, France, USA and the UK, with a write-up in France’s national newspaper Le Monde, a feature in Loud & Quiet Magazine (UK), Ideal Home Noise was also named #3 in Rolling Stone’s “Top NZ albums of 2023”. In the USA, Vera’s 2023 album charted #55 on the NACC Radio 200 Chart, and scored Top 30 Support from nearly 30 stations & picked support from 26 other stations.

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‍‘Enders’, due for release in 2025, is Vera Ellen’s third album with Flying Nun Records, following the grass roots success of her partnership with the label and their release of It’s Your Birthday in 2021, and Ideal Home Noise in early 2023. The new album explores the nuances of unconventional love and finding meaning and joy in community and nature. Deep philosophical ponderings are sprinkled throughout the record and are thinly disguised under bright synth lines and cheeky lyricism.

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Having been granted the much sought-after NZ Pacific Studio Singer Songwriter Residency in mid-2023,Vera got to work on writing and recording 13 demos for her next album. The rural community focus of the residency played a major part in informing the themes of Vera’s new tracks.