Vera Ellen has released an ode to romantic halfwits – so naturally she’s named the track after the fuel of the lovelorn.
Already familiar to anyone who caught Ellen’s recent set at Laneway or Twisted Frequency, “sangria (demo)” is performed, recorded, and mixed by the Wellington-based artist herself.
“‘Sangria’ is an ode to all the romantic halfwits who know about wanting something they shouldn’t have. The intoxicating mix of alcohol and the familiar scent of an old lover,” Ellen explains. “Saying ‘to hell with!’ and doing the thing you mustn’t in the name of a particularly inviting moon.”
“Sangria (demo)” arrives with the perfect accompaniment, a lo-fi music video just as DIY as the track itself. Ellen self-edited footage captured on a national tour with fellow Flying Nun alumni Voom and Reb Fountain, as well as clips from her time on the road supporting Crowded House, including playing to thousands at the Sydney Opera House.
Listening and watching at the same time, a touching dichotomy emerges: the loneliness of Ellen’s words, lyrics of unrequited romance, overwhelmed by footage of her surrounded and supported by her bandmates, her community, the people who help us through our heartbreak(s). (Those same people will also encourage us to say “to hell with,” depending on whether the situation calls for it.)
Ellen’s new track could have easily fit on her most recent release, her 2024 EP heartbreak for jetlag, which recalled Karen O’s unfairly maligned debut solo album, Crush Songs.
“For my own sanity I needed to make work like I used to, hunched over my laptop with the sticky keys, sock over a mix, concocted in my bedroom at my most vulnerable, touched by no hands but my own from start to finish,” Ellen said about her EP last year.
“None of these songs I planned to share beyond a couple of close people. But each got me through some heavy feelings and out the other side. May they be a comfort in your lowest moments, which to me makes it worth going through mine.”
Heartbreak for jetlag was Ellen’s enjoyably low-key follow-up to winning the 2024 Taite Music Prize for her excellent second album, Ideal Home Noise.
She was honoured at a ceremony in Auckland’s Q Theatre last April, despite facing strong competition from the other nine nominees that included Ebony Lamb, Dick Move, Erny Belle, and Mermaidens.
When Rolling Stone AU/NZ caught up with Ellen backstage after her win, she was still in shock.
“You know how you think that people will secretly know, and then they just act shocked? Like, no, I literally didn’t know. I remember just sitting there when they were announcing the nominees, just feeling so happy because I’m like, ‘Look at all these amazing nominees I’m with,’ just chillin’. And then when it was my name called – I’m still really shocked, honestly,” she said.
Vera Ellen’s “sangria (demo)” is out now via Flying Nun Records.
