03 February 2023 - 0 Comments

Recently named ‘Best Alternative Artist’ at the 2022 Aotearoa Music Awards, Wellington-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Vera Ellen has announced her upcoming album, Ideal Home Noise, which is out digitally and on both red or black vinyl and CD on Friday March 31st, 2023 via Flying Nun Records.

Purchase / Pre-save here

Alongside the new album announcement, Vera has shared the first single from the album, Carpenter with a Sports Team directed video. Plus, Vera Ellen and her band will take to the road on album release for a four-date tour of Aotearoa, playing headline shows in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. Tickets are on sale now from Banished Music.

Ideal Home Noise is 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.

After the critical success of her 2021 album, It’s Your Birthday — which earned the artist both the ‘Best Alternative Artist’ award at the 2022 AMA’s as well as a 2022 Taite Award nomination — Vera’s momentum is unstoppable with her new 13 track album raring to go. “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.“, says Vera Ellen.

The record was tracked at Wellington studio, The Surgery, with the talented multi-instrumentalist Ben Lemi (of Trinity Roots, French For Rabbits and Dawn Diver fame) on production and engineering duties. “Ben helped bring the record to life from my initial demos in a very organic way” continues Ellen.

Of the new single Carpenter, Vera has said “We are all quietly fighting our own battles. There is a feeling I get about having to fight them alone, keeping them close to my chest in shame. But I think we really all need to learn how to lean on each other. We would be more compassionate people, if we had the slightest window into someone else's experience; their pain, their fear, their life. Carpenter is inspired by that. It's a desperate cry, but there's a triumph in being able to ask for help."

The Carpenter music video is the first in a series of three; and introduces Vera Ellen in a vampiric youth-sucking role. All three videos in this series will be directed and produced by prolific film-makers, Sports Team.

Says Sports Team, "It's been a total dream working with Vera Ellen and band on the visuals for their new music. Sports Team are massive Vera Ellen fans (I was the person crying tears of joy when they opened for Marlon Williams at The Civic last month) and have been hankering to do a music video series for an artist for ages. Please enjoy our ode to Near Dark (1987) in the clip for Carpenter - we hope it leaves you confused enough to want to see what happens next, but not so confused that you feel like you've just watched Tenet (2020) for the first time."

Watch: Vera Ellen Carpenter Video

Also featured on the upcoming album, is the recently released Homewrecker single - which was named one of Radio New Zealand’s Best Singles of 2022. The video for Homewrecker sees Vera cheerfully crooning amongst a cast of gorgeous models, despite the bleak and introspective undertones of the song's lyrics.

On the name of the upcoming album, Ideal Home Noise, Vera explains that she came across the phrase in a book, while house-sitting a Malibu property formerly occupied by The Beach Boys. Since then, the words have been recycled through various notebooks and phone apps, somehow remaining in the artist’s subconscious all these years later.

In a very personal statement about Ideal Home Noise, Vera Ellen has summarised “My songs have been my friends, my lovers, my enemies. I have been their biggest critic and fan and they have been mine. And as for this album, you will hear my pain up close, but you can take comfort knowing I wouldn't trade it for the world. So here we go, to another album. One of many more (I hope).”

Ideal Home Noise NZ Tour Dates

31 March - Dive, Dunedin

1 April - Wunderbar, Christchurch

14 April - Whammy, Auckland

15 April - San Fran, Wellington

Tickets on sale now from Banished Music

Photo Credit: Nicola Sandford

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