Interview Alma Elste — a musician who touches our hearts
“When I was a child, I was very shy. Music was a way to isolate myself in my imagination and express myself in a different way when I had a hard time doing it with words.”
Alma Elste offers us a very personal EP that she produced entirely by herself. Her voice guides us through her unique and moving universe. Alma explores love, fragility and memories of Rome, along with a minimalist production.
Words that touch the heart, a voice full of emotions, a piano and a guitar are Frederika’s weapons, aka Alma Elste, for whom music is a way of expressing herself that sometimes feels more natural than talking. When her parents gave her a Casio keyboard at the age of 5, Alma Elste instantly connected with the instrument and immersed herself in music as if in a refuge, inspired by the lyrics and musicality of the Strokes, the blues of Etta James and Billie Holiday, the bossanova that her mother played at home and the music of Benjamin Biolay and Serge Gainsbourg.
On the occasion of the release of her EP “The Story of Alma” on November 5, 2021, we talked with Alma about music, creative process, writing, sources of inspiration, the memorable concerts of Coldplay and Michael Jackson, her 3 different identities and names, her tendency to incessant questioning, and a dinner with Glenn Gould, Christopher Nolan, her grandfather and maybe Amy Winehouse…
Link to Alma Elste’s EP “The Story of Alma” on soundcloud
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Alma Elste, I make music, I play the piano, the guitar and I sing. I started playing the piano as a child, then I learned to play the guitar and started composing songs as a teenager. I was 18 years old for my first gig, so I’ve been recording and performing for about 10 years.
How did music enter your life?
My maternal grandfather played the piano and my mother is a bossanova fan, so there has always been a lot of music in the house. I remember perfectly the tiny Casio keyboard I got when I was 5 years old. I loved playing on it, it was my first connection with the instrument and it never really left me. As a child, I was very shy. Music was a way to isolate myself in my imagination and to express myself in a different way when I had a hard time doing it with words.
When did you create your first songs?
When I was in high school, I bought a small analog recorder. I would come home from school and spend hours recording instruments and my voice. I completely lost track of time, I loved it. I composed songs with a piano, a guitar, sometimes a little bass and my voice, in French or in English.
Why do people call you Alma Elste?
Alma is the name my parents almost gave me, they hesitated until the last moment! Since I’ve been making music, I’ve created this double, this kind of alter ego that I like to let live. I have always liked this idea of giving life to someone I am not. I believe that according to the name we have, we are not the same person, our name defines us in our being. I really like the name Alma which means “soul” in Spanish, my mother’s language. “Elste” are the letters in the center of my last name, they are at the heart of my name.
Even though my first name is Frederika, I don’t feel like I’m playing a role when people call me Alma. I find Frederika to be a bit of a cold name. When I was about 18, I rediscovered my middle name, Amalia. I realized that it was really the name that named me. My close friends call me Amalia. When I work in the music business, I am usually called Alma. It’s pretty crazy and mysterious to me, I feel like I have 3 lives!
What are your musical influences ?
My maternal grandfather was a classical and jazz musician and my mother is South American, she used to play a lot of bossanova and tango at home. I listen to everything, I am moved by any kind of music and lyrics are very important to me. James Blake is one of my favorite current artists. In high school, I listened to a lot of pop, I was a fan of Coldplay, whose first two albums are beautiful. I also loved the Strokes, I listened to their first 2 albums over and over. I was very inspired by Julian Casablancas’ very particular way of writing. I even composed a song called “Julian”!
I’ve also loved black music for a long time and I formed my ear for singing by listening to this type of music. When I was a child, my parents gave me a small gospel album that I loved listening to. As a teenager, I listened to a lot of soul music: Etta James, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald… I also love Frank Sinatra who was inspired by gospel and blues. I discovered the genius of the electric guitar through the blues.
Can you talk about your EP “The Story of Alma”, released on November 5th, 2021 (Cracki Records)?
I did everything myself for the EP, I played and sang everything.
This EP is very much focused on my voice, there are much less electronic sounds than in my past compositions. For reasons beyond my control, I had ended a musical collaboration. I’m not originally a producer, so for the first time I found myself having to do everything myself. It was more relevant and simple for me to go alone and decide everything, rather than having to compromise by working with other people. In a way, it gave me back my freedom. I had the control and the ability to make this EP the way I wanted it to be, it was very nice to be completely independent.
Do you have a specific creative process when you create your music?
Everything comes to me at the same time, melody, harmony and lyrics. When I have a melody in my head, I also hear the harmony. The words and the meaning of the words are generated simultaneously with the musicality of the harmony and the melody. I often start at the piano with my voice.
What difference does it make when you sing in French or in English?
I don’t have the same relationship to music when I sing in French as in English. English allows me to express in very few words an emotion that can have several meanings. I have the feeling that a sentence in French has a more precise and sometimes more closed meaning than in English. It is more difficult for me to write a song in French than in English, maybe because I have listened to a lot of Anglo-Saxon music. I also listen to and admire a lot of French songs like Alain Bashung, Benjamin Biolay, Serge Gainsbourg, Edith Piaf… But I have the feeling that spoken French is already musical in itself, so it seems useless and strange to me to add music on French.
Are you more comfortable writing in English?
I don’t know, because apart from music, I write very personal things in French that I might not be able to write in English.
I also write novels in French. On the one hand, I am the same person who makes music and writes novels, on the other hand, they are two different lives. With time, I understood that these two things are infinitely correlated, but my relationship to writing is different. Writing a book comes more from the head than from the heart, while composing music and writing lyrics happens very little in the head and a lot in the emotions. In both cases, emotion and reflection are present, but their dosage is different and the truth is to be found in different places. In the music and in the novel, we find the musical dimension, the rhythm and the story. Music is a path and a story, so the narrative in music is very important, it is what makes a track work or not. In a novel, it is very rare to write a chorus with 4 sentences that recurs regularly. These are things that I feel I understand intimately but I prefer to do them and feel them rather than theorize them. These are things that I do intuitively, while being aware that I am doing them.
What are your sources of inspiration?
For the first track of the EP, “Cy”, I was inspired by a painter I love, Cy Twombly. I wrote the track when I was living in Rome. Even now, when I’m talking about it to you, I still see images of where I lived, the trees, Cy Twombly paintings, the sun, the sky and the light. Sometimes, inspiration can come from a memory, a moment, an image or a person.
What are your future projects?
I can’t wait to get back in the studio to record the songs I’ve written. I will also be playing live at the Pop-Up du Label in Paris in early 2022 and at music festivals in spring.
NOW YOU CHOOSE: I’ve asked Alma 2 questions each time and she decided which one she wanted to answer to.
What is your dream collaboration? // What is your dream stage to play at?
People say that when you want to work with someone, you should never say so, otherwise it won’t happen. So I choose the other question! Like many, when I was 18, I dreamed of playing at the Olympia in Paris. Today, I don’t know, this kind of desire depends on the moment. I opened at the Trianon in September and I loved that venue. It has the perfect size, a warm atmosphere, the sound is great and the audience had an amazing energy.
What is the best concert you have ever been to? // What concert would you dream to go to?
I would have loved to see Chet Baker in concert, especially one of his last performances when he was very weak and had no teeth anymore. He had a unique and great way of singing.
The best concert I ever went to was probably the Coldplay concert in 2003, I was 12 years old and I was a huge fan! The first concert I went to was Michael Jackson’s concert at the Parc des Princes in Paris when I was 5 years old. I have a memory of it that is both incredible and a little disturbing. It was crazy, and completely spectacular. Michael Jackson came on stage from underground in a kind of small rocket. A fan joined him and started crying in his arms, I guess that it was staged, but I didn’t understand what was going on at the time. The Parc des Princes was packed, people were going crazy and I thought it was very strange at 5 years old. I loved it though, I still have the little yellow sight glasses that my parents bought me. They might be stored in the same place as the Casio keyboard!
What is your biggest dream? // What is your biggest fear?
My biggest fear is losing the people I love. My own death doesn’t scare me that much, but the death of my loved ones terrifies me.
If you could have dinner with 3 people, living or dead, imaginary or real, who would you choose?
Without hesitation, I immediately think of Glenn Gould. I love him, I feel like I’ve lived with him since I was 15. I would love to talk about philosophy with Christopher Nolan. The third person would be my maternal grandfather who I never knew. I would love to spend a whole day with him. I’m thinking about inviting Amy Winehouse, but I’m afraid she would be in a weird state. Otherwise, I would love to meet the writer Etty Hillesum.
What would you cook for them for dinner?
Simple but good things that taste good.
People say that there are two types of people: the “Anything can happen” who prepare themselves for all possible situations and the “Nothing really matters” who don’t plan anything and expect to come up with something when the time comes. Who are you?
With my twisted mind, I am an “Anything can happen” but “Nothing really matters”, and it goes on and on! I can go from absolute angst to distance on any subject, it’s a constant back and forth between the two.
Interview by Emma Renaudin in November 2021
Follow Alma Elste on instagram and listen to her music on her soundcloud.
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