"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"atmospheric textures and rich soundscapes that mimic natural settings and phenomena" -
look at my records
"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
old man of the woods is the ethereal electro pop project of seattle-based songwriter and producer miranda elliott.
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 album votives invites us deeper into elliott’s imagination. flickering between devotion and resentment, affection and isolation, faith and doubt, elliott creates a sonic labyrinth guided by a dream she had after writing the title track, that our minds are little churches filled with votives burning for everyone we’ve loved. the first three form a triptych of sorts – 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.