Cape Perpetua is a new series of ambient incantations - one-shot acapella experiments of looped poetry, gradually evolving from hushed spells into expansive worlds. Inspired by Gregorian chant’s choral accumulation and ecological soundscapes - where every species occupies a distinct frequency niche - these compositions unfold through harmonic layering and repetition. Each begins with a poem, written last spring during a tumultuous period that left Elliott spinning with no center. Through the practice of sonically circling and weaving in each new line, she reached a meditative state, constructing a new axis within herself. Her aim is to extend that sonic embrace outward now, inviting audiences into a shared space of resonance and presence. A new incantation will be released each Tuesday this winter on Bandcamp as a fundraiser for Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, with Cape Perpetua as a whole arriving March 10th.
Each track pairs with a projection portal, another ongoing series of Elliott's, exploring ephemeral video projection works installed in natural environments. Layering footage within gothic architectural forms - a practice began during a residency in Paris last year - she conjures transient thresholds between worlds.
"Uses unconventional methods to create something of undeniable beauty and evocative power" - Queen City Sounds & Art
Tendrils is a collection of devotionals, written at a yearning distance from their beloveds. It’s the recognition of the vines that bind us to all we adore, at times only felt once they become taut, begin to quiver, reverberate, fray, snap, curl. And the realization that there will always be more, weeds crawling through cracks, for those who stay hungry.
Recorded while an artist in residence with Culterim Gallery at a lakeside former sanatorium in Biesenthal, Germany, the album itself is preserved in amber. Any attempt to interfere once leaving erased some essential essence of the estate’s eerie serenity, forcing Elliott to choose peeling walls over perfection. Each room dense with memory, a century-old space intended for healing in isolation, for walks around the lake that Elliott too circled endlessly each day, pen in hand, one’s left to wonder whose tendrils she really writes of, or if we’re all entwined.
Vesperal vocals echo from cracked windows and walls, coating the consumptive cathedral, forming an organic organ. Oozing oscillations transform studio into swamp. Damp footsteps haunt the halls, sometimes pacing, sometimes with purpose, demanding to be let in. Whispered truths lay waiting for whoever needs to hear them. With Old Man of the Woods, there’s always a breeze, a blush, an invitation to sway and engage, if you choose to accept.
"Songs you don’t simply listen to—you wander through them, as if through fog, with hands outstretched. With its blend of floating vocals and grounded pulses, Tendrils blooms into something mythic: a hymn for the haunted and the hungry" - Tunite Music
“Pulsing synths, vocal hypnosis, and cinematic atmosphere that builds like a storm...mesmerizing, spiritual, carnal...not just an album, a sensory portal” - Expansión Radial
“A moody odyssey that lulls into a trance” - York Calling
"Like walking the empty corridors of old, abandoned buildings, trying to piece together a history you’ll never fully know" - Motel Void
“Ethereal vocals resembling the rustle of leaves, blending with electric pulses of emotion” - Voxwave
"Explores the close relationship of preservation and decomposition, evolving the goth pop of previous releases to increasingly evocative results" - Various Small Flames (on Anticipating)
“Sometimes percussive, sometimes atmospheric, sometimes harmonious or even roaring...fascinatingly diverse and vibrant” - Berlin On Air
“Exists within the hushed aftermath of something and the unformed period before a new beginning…the mood is undeniably ghostly, though its eeriness carries not so much fright or unease as a sense of possibility” - Various Small Flames (on Amber)
“Built on strangely hypnotic percussion that wobbles and clatters throughout, it’s almost a dance track, but Elliott’s vocals remain ethereal as ever, drifting in and out like curtains of mist” - Various Small Flames (on Meditation)
Having explored the natural and dream worlds in 2020 EP Dissolve and 2021 LP Votives, Elliott descends into the shadow realm with Triptych, eclipsing innocence with explorations of embodiment, eroticism, and envy. Without compromising on the organic or enigmatic, its production embraces a minimalist physicality, newly unafraid of rawness and repetition. Lyrically, it’s more profane and absurd than anything Elliott has dared to release prior, yet almost ironically it’s the first collection of songs she has performed on stage since their conception, having finally begun playing live shows in 2023. Spanning stages across the US, this exercise in creative embodiment has shifted the nature of what Elliott is attracted to singing and creating. Writing has become less about the purging of despair and more about the exploration and empowerment of alter ego and taboo.
Triptych I: Devolve is the first installment in this new series - a visceral villain’s arc, tracing her devolution from possession to obsession to dissolution. Repurposing the narrative three-panel structure of religious iconography, the EP paints her fall from grace, hunger for vengeance, and embrace of newfound darkness, encouraging listeners to unravel in unison.
"Moves from resentment to something closer to power with the realisation that the ability to haunt can represent its own form of control" - Various Small Flames
"An ode to the intoxication of devotion" - Sun 13
The debut full length album from Old Man of the Woods.
When Elliott grew up, she wanted to be a tree. The only child of a landscape painter, the forest felt like kin. Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, she spent her youth exploring the James River, Blue Ridge Mountains, and her own backyard, drawn to the mystery of dense green and deep blue. It allowed her to fill in the blanks, to invent the strange creature that must have rustled those leaves, to construct a constant fantasy within reality.
Elliott would bring that embellished worldview to everything. She photographed vacant factories, calling them urban cathedrals. She saw crumbling walls and peeling paint as abstract compositions of texture and line. She viewed the world as a perpetual collage that could be rearranged and reimagined.
Old Man of the Woods is born of that mentality. Elliott describes her creative process as the alchemy of shit into sustenance, naming the project after a dark, scruffy mushroom that survives by the same creed. Created in her home studio in Richmond, her 2020 debut EP Dissolve “blurs the line between the personal and the natural world, conjuring a vivid and sometimes eerie soundscape as damp and rich as the woodland floor” (Various Small Flames).
Old Man of the Woods’ 2021 debut LP Votives invites us deeper into Elliott’s imagination. Flickering between devotion and resentment, affection and isolation, faith and doubt, Votives forms a sonic labyrinth guided by a dream that our minds are little churches filled with votives burning for everyone we’ve loved. The first three tracks construct a triptych - beginning with ‘Garden’, an ambient hum evolving with repetition from a hesitant fascination to an unwavering trust, where the candle is lit; moving to ‘Let Me Miss You’, a ukulele-strummed post-breakup plea that begs to feel nostalgic instead of hurt, where it still burns for a memory; then to ‘Votives’, a danceable bass-driven reminder to let go of the memories that only weigh us down, where we blow it out. As the album progresses, these themes repeat, morph, and steep. We grieve our lost loves and lost selves, slowly growing stronger and more assured, with honest moments of weakness along the way. Written from 2018 to 2021, Votives is a journey through what it means to love and be human and make mistakes and keep going. Wrapped in a warm fog of dreamy harmonies and swirling synths, it reminds us that love is magic, release is vital, and movement is forever.
"A pleasant, dreamy synth-pop journey with delicate harmonies that feel like they’re striking the listener from all angles" - Stereogum
"Each pop nugget is like a different landscape painting, textural and intriguing, with deeper meaning hidden behind the lush, beguiling surfaces" - Foxy Digitalis
"One second the record feels engulfed in a deep nebulous fog of doubt, the next it is a sunbeam breaking through, shining a light on what is it to be human, in love, out of love and very much willing to learn how to cope with both" - For the Rabbits
"A myriad of musical ideas, beautifully married together, Votives is an album of rare experimentation and a comforting place to ponder the disorientation of life" - Secret Meeting
"Down-tempo pop splendour that slowly unfurls with repeated listens" - Sun-13
"Develops the style introduced on Dissolve, pushing beyond the natural world and into that of dreams, thereby inviting us further into Elliott's distinctive imagination" - Various Small Flames
"Atmospheric textures and rich soundscapes that mimic natural settings and phenomena" - Look at My Records
"Pop history, and especially its more electronic side, is very much Elliott's playground, and she conjures up the most diverse influences to create her sound collages" - Slim Chance
"Synth pop on the surface, but...delicately woven ballads, meant to be shared in secret" - Austin Town Hall
"As intimate as they are hidden" - Slumber Mag
"An inviting live wire that exudes cool and charm" - The Autumn Roses
"A wild world" - Closed Captioned
"The last mile of the trek. The train slows down behind the rain. Watch as the entire countryside unfolds like a blanket and you try to smile." - Small Albums
Still curious?
Interview with Various Small Flames
Dissolve is Old Man of the Woods’ debut EP, made in Elliott’s Richmond home studio during a month of endless winter rain and bad bout of bronchitis. Everything clouded and waterlogged, the boundary between environment and self began to fade. Wrapped in a warm fog, yearning vocals float through waves of synth and heartbeats of bass, conjuring a world equally intimate and organic. She found comfort in letting herself dissolve, and hopes you will too.
"Blurs the line between the personal and the natural world, conjuring a vivid and sometimes eerie soundscape as damp and rich as the woodland floor" - Various Small Flames
"Takes listeners through the thick shrouds of an aural forest with comforting, soft sounds that flow from her raw, delicate vocal delivery" - Look At My Records