Cardiff-born producer and DJ Elkka today announces her transcendent debut album Prism Of Pleasure, due for release on May 3, 2024 via Ninja Tune. To celebrate the announcement, Elkka has shared the sweetly intimate lead single ‘Make Me’, a delicious yet cavernous electronic dance track that explores Elkka’s sensual joy as a bold, queer woman.
“Make me love you, make me love you, make me love you,” so begins ‘Make Me’; all heavy repetitive beats and glistening, syrupy vocal samples. Much of Elkka’s debut album Prism of Pleasure is like this: warmth and coldness rubbing against each other sonically, pulling the listener in unexpected directions. “I like to go through different genres and moods and surprise you,” says Elkka. Written over the space of 18 months, Prism of Pleasure encapsulates Elkka’s essence as an LGBTQ+ artist who pushes freedom and sensuality to the forefront of her work. It hasn’t always been like this: born and raised in South Wales, with next to no queer community in her immediate vicinity, Elkka had to piece together her identity slowly and curiously, gradually finding herself along the way. After coming out and moving to London in her 20s, the musician started DJing, writing and producing, which eventually led to her launching her own record label, femme culture, and running her own queer club nights off the back of that. “I think sometimes things unlock, and start to make sense and then you just follow it,” Elkka says now. “I started to go out more and become part of a community. I was more confident in myself, so I was more confident in writing and producing – it all came together at the same time.”
Written around the notion of queer intimacy, Prism of Pleasure is like a peep into a steam-filled room of wonders, via the female gaze (a concept beautifully represented in the pink-tinged album artwork, photographed by Elkka’s wife and longtime creative collaborator Alex Lambert). From the smooth, silken vocals of ‘Crushhh’ to the slow-winding, breathy beats of ‘Your Skin’ (“I’m breathing you in, I want to taste every inch of your skin”) and the steady, undulating synth patterns of ‘surrender2me’, Prism of Pleasure unfurls like a patchwork of sweat-slick nights, emotional connectedness and hidden pleasures. “It’s like a celebration of [how far] I’ve come,” explains Elkka. “I was never taught about queer pleasure. I was never taught how important that is – not just sexually but generally in life. So I wanted to explore all of that more deeply.”
Ultimately, Prism of Pleasure is the result of Elkka opening herself up in new ways, and being as authentic as possible. “I wanted a rawness to this album,” she says. “It’s something that can be felt, and that helps you connect with someone that’s listening to it, if you’re willing to expose a part of yourself. And again, this is all really transferable to relationships, and being with someone, all of that stuff. and that’s why these things overlap for me. I gave everything I could, and hopefully that translates.”
Elkka’s deep intuition is the unifying thread throughout her illustrious career: vibrant releases for Local Action and Ninja Tune have marked her as an unstoppable force within the London underground. This recognition metabolised when she was awarded BBC’s prestigious Essential Mix of the Year in 2021, spotlighting her radiant blend of classic house, breakbeat and experimental electronica to the world over. She has been widely supported by her peers including Four Tet, Floating Points, TSHA, Caribou, Sofia Kourtesis, Jon Hopkins, Ben UFO, SHERELLE, and recently won an AIM Award for Best Remix for her rework of Ela Minus’ ‘Megapunk’. Last year, Elkka released a 4-track EP of energetic club tools called DJ Friendly and she also contributed to the trailblazing DJ-Kicks series with a spellbinding mix that championed her love of women and the LGBTQ+ dance community of which Elkka is fiercely part of, regularly performing in intimate spaces and queer parties at the likes of Panorama Bar and FEEL IT. Stay tuned for more from Elkka’s Prism Of Pleasure.
Elkka – Prism Of Pleasure
Tracklist:
1. Break all my walls down
2. Right Here
3. Make Me
4. Crushhh feat. John Caroll Kirby
5. Air Tight feat. Dot Major
6. Your Skin
7. Passionfruit feat. John Caroll Kirby
8. I Just Want To Love You
9. surrender2me
10. FCKD It
Alongside the album announcement, Elkka has also announced four ‘Elkka Presents: Prism of Pleasure’ shows, kicking off at Badaboum in Paris on May 4 before rolling through London, Brussels and Manchester.
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