Elke - Divine Urge (2024)

“I want more than what I’ve allowed myself to have,” says singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kayla Graninger. For the Nashville artist, who records off-kilter art-pop as Elke, self-restraint was a hard habit to crack: “I’d become a robot to my own thoughts telling me to ‘be
good’ and ‘don’t you dare mess up,’” she explains. Her father’s subsequent cancer diagnosis only amplified those repressive tendencies. But when Graninger’s mother called one day with news that the disease hadn’t spread to his brain, it was more than just a relief: Graninger
celebrated by going for a highway drive, blasting music, elatedly screaming at the top of herlungs. When the Bluetooth suddenly cut out, she sat in near-silence for the rest of the drive, listening only to her own heavy breathing – a rare purging of her inhibitions, an unexpected
beacon of self- rediscovery. That anecdote inspired Elke’s sophomore album, Divine Urge, out October 25, 2024 on Congrats Records.

Elke was born to be an artist, but first, she had to figure out how to be herself. As an admittedly “super unusual” and often misunderstood child, adapting to the world around her meant hiding her true self – not a sustainable or healthy tactic for a Leo who came out of the womb singing
and dancing.

Where Elke found she could be her true self, however, was in nature. “I was very depressed while writing this record,” she says. “I kept thinking how I wanted to eat dirt and become one with the trees. I didn’t need to possess nature or build a garden; I just wanted to roll around and feel it.”

With the sanctity of nature as a guide, Divine Urge is the sound of an artist who knows herself intimately. The follow-up to Elke’s 2022 EPMy “Human Experience”opens with its searing titletrack: “Racing to disorder but Ilike it!” she sings in her haunting contralto, backed by a swarm of
arpeggiated synths, forceful guitars, and a bloghouse beat.

Co-produced by Elke and her close friend Jake McMullen, the album seamlessly folds in her myriad of influences, which span old school doo wop to prog rock to 2000s pop divas. “Insect Song” is punctuated with blasts of punky, breakbeat drums, while “One Fake Sedative” almost veers towards freak folk. Meanwhile, “You Can’t Come With Me” stands out as a hypnagogic ballad, as songs like “Hide in Heaven” feel destined to light up a dance floor. Lead single “Enchanté” earns its title with an earworm dance-punk bassline that punctuates Elke’s spoken words, before the track bursts into a dazzling coda that feels like the sonic equivalent of wa
tching a meteor shower. But don’t try to put Elke in a box. Having finally freed herself from the pressure to make her music “palatable,” she’d much rather you not compare her to any other artist.

“This record is so huge for me because in making it, I defined myself as a whole person, when before I felt like a million scattered pieces,” she explains. “I used to get a sinking feeling in my stomach from not having a reference in the world to know that what I was doing was ‘safe.’ Now that I know myself more, that feeling ignites me.” In short, Divine Urge acts as Elke’s answer to the ubiquitous question: What would you do if you weren’t afraid?