Elana Brody discusses her recent performances and her new album The Garden with KGNU’s Cameron Henderson. She performs several songs and reflects on her musical journey, contrasting the gritty experience of busking in New York subways with the natural inspiration of her upbringing in nature. She also touches on her spiritual connection to liturgy and the healing power of music, expressing how her work combines both ritual and emotional transcendence. The Garden will be released September 20 (Interview date: 9/12/2024)
Cameron Henderson: Now in the studio we’ve got Elana Brody. I’m going to turn on her mics. She’s floating through town and she’s got an album out and she’s going to play some tunes. Welcome to the studio, Elana.
Elana Brody: Thank you, Cameron. Thanks for having me. This is great.
Cameron Henderson: What brings you into town?
Elana Brody: I played a show at the Mercury Cafe in Denver last Thursday, played a show in Paonia Monday night, and then I have a bunch of nieces and a nephew here, so I get to visit my close family.
Cameron Henderson: Family will drop anyone in.
Elana Brody: I used to live here also.
Cameron Henderson: Okay, that’ll do it too.
Elana Brody: Yeah.
Cameron Henderson: Well, Elana, let’s kick it off with a song and we can talk about it after.
Elana Brody: Sweet. This is a song called “Insect”, it’s from the new record.
Elana Brody plays “Insect”.
Cameron Henderson: Thank you. Elana Brody is live in the studio here with me. My name is Cam Henderson. This is the Morning Sound Alternative. That was very beautiful, Elana. Thank you very much for coming in. I was reading your bio and you were nurtured at the breasts of mother nature, so to speak, walking through the woods.
But then I also noticed that you cut your teeth in the grimy grounds of busking. And I don’t know where my question’s going, but what’s the contrast? What are the similarities and dissimilarities of busking in a subway? Cause I’m a big fan of busking. I lived in Rome for many years and saw many gypsies and saw a lot of great music on the streets of Rome. I was always fascinated by that cold, dark reality, expressing music and beauty from a corner that smells, versus the natural setting you came from.
Elana Brody: Yeah. It’s an interesting question to try to think about what’s similar. I’m just going to start with what’s different. This album that I’m releasing next week is called The Garden, and that’s much more of an homage to where I come from, which is beautiful. I decided to release that music first. I have a ton of music that was written in the grips of the city, in the jaws of the city, that is much more gritty. But I wanted to enter with a little bit of an honoring to some of the idyllic ways that living with Mother Nature as teacher, as guide, as mother really brought me up. Just tuning into what’s beautiful in this world that was made beyond human.
Getting to your question around the similarities, something that came up was potentially the spontaneity. Because when you’re in the woods and especially if you’re really quiet and really present and you’re really listening, you’ll be surprised by what creatures come your way and the diversity of the creatures. Whether that be animal creatures or even just the beautiful wild plants that surprise you as you go on your way.
I would say that’s potentially a similarity between being underground in a subway and you have no idea what you’re going to get as far as what kind of characters are going to come over and talk to you. Who’s going to ask you to watch their bike while they go barefoot to the bodega or whatever,
Cameron Henderson: Skateboarders, the sound of skateboarding.
Elana Brody: Well, there’s a funny thing I learned down there in New York when the train came. I did some above ground and then some underground, but the underground culture – there was this guy, I’m forgetting his name. He played the banjo and he would always yell ‘train solo’ and let the train do its solo.
Cameron Henderson: I love humans sometimes.
Elana Brody: Yeah, exactly.
Cameron Henderson: Cool. Elana, thank you so much for that. A beautiful song, hunger of the heart, really a sense of humility coming out of that and the heart that wants more and is ready for more. We’re ready for another song here. Go ahead and tell us what that’s about.
Elana Brody: Thanks. You invited a little bit more grit. So I’m going to play a song that’s not on the record, but I’m playing it on my tour right now. It’s called “Bears Ears”, and it was written in the heartbreak and protest of President 45’s decision to give 87% of Bears Ears National Monument. It’s millions and millions of acres of sacred land that’s important to the indigenous people of Utah. It was decided to privatize it during Donald Trump’s presidency. That was really upsetting to me. And I wrote a song about it.
Elana Brody plays “Bears Ears”.
Cameron Henderson: Thank you, Elana. That was a beautiful song. We couldn’t get the studio set up for her to play piano. She also plays piano. I brought my harmonicas, I forgot to bring them in, maybe down the road we’ll play.
Elana Brody: That would have been a good song for that.
Cameron Henderson: I know, that’s what I was just thinking. I play real harmonica, folks. It’s not a joke. Elana Brody’s got a new album called The Garden. She’s floating through town visiting her family, but also playing music for us. We got time for one more song, but, and maybe one more question that I was curious about reading your bio is your immersion into mikvah or the sacred waters of the Hebrew tradition.
I’m wondering what your view of liturgy and nature is, how liturgy and nature work together. And then music and ritual, I was always amazed by this quote from Confucius or this theory that he had that life is both music and ritual. Music is the love element, the unifying element that brings us together, the kind of thing you’d see at a Taylor Swift concert or any concert for that matter. Whereas ritual though, which is maybe less appreciated, is the necessary separation. The distance that we need to respect the individual before us and the hierarchy of values. And I always liked that. Confucius was saying that if you exceed one or the other, if you have music without ritual, everything is blended together in an undifferentiated way. If you have ritual without love or music, then you have cold truth. So I don’t know, I was just riffing there.
Elana Brody: Wow. Okay. So that’s a big one. That’s Confucius for you. I’ll have to chew on those thoughts a little bit more. But it’s interesting. I want to go to what you said about music without ritual. I went to Berklee College of Music for a couple years and mostly struggled when I got there because that element was so missing, and just knowing so deeply and intuitively that the original purpose of music was to help people to transcend earthly woes and move the energy of what’s going on.
In some cultures, music is actually medicinal, specifically the mughams of Turkish music and Iranian music. There’s a different scale for different physical ailments, so it’s like they know exactly what music to play.
Cameron Henderson: Musical reflexology.
Elana Brody: They know what to play to heal people. I just intuitively knew that and then it took me a long journey of playing in the subways, doing this, playing in clubs, doing all the things. And then actually moving to Boulder, kind of dropping out of New York City and moving to Boulder to chill. And in Boulder, which makes a lot of sense. I do feel that there was more earth energy here, and my sisters lived here. But yeah, I felt the spiritual qualities here also. It drew me into questioning my traditional roots and got the message that to be a healer, I would have to do some research into what my roots were and what the traditions there were. I found an entire musical culture and you said liturgical. That last song also has a little taste of that musical culture. Cause there’s this kind of wordless melody singing that happens.
Cameron Henderson: Almost like a psalm, Psalm of David.
Elana Brody: Yeah, and you don’t have to have words always, but anyway, it’s a good segue because I thought I was going to play two more so now I’m going to decide between two songs. I’m inspired to play my song which is called “The Afternoon” on the record which is actually a mashup, in some ways, of the Song of Songs.
Cameron Henderson: The Holy of Holies, they say, of sacred scripture.
Elana Brody: Yeah, it’s also the biggest love poem, and it gets you in the mood and so it’s as sensual and erotic as liturgical poetry gets in the Jewish tradition. You said, how does it meet nature? This poem particularly invites in all of these sacred fruits and invites you into the garden. So it just felt right to put it on the album.
Elana Brody plays “The Afternoon”.
Cameron Henderson: You’ve been listening to Elana Brody live here in studio with Cam Henderson, your faithful local DJ. Thank you, Elana. That was very beautiful and refreshing of our souls. Nothing like live music to warm us up. Thanks for coming in and drop back in sometime.
Elana Brody: Please have me. Yeah.
Cameron Henderson: Again, Elana Brody, check out her new album, The Garden.
Elana Brody: And the Swan is out now, the single it’s in the music videos on YouTube. It’s pretty beautiful.
Cameron Henderson: Okay. Thank you very much.
