Lisel – Ciphers

We're extremely excited and honored to introduce the newest signing to the Luminelle Recordings roster: Lisel is the experimental art-pop solo project of singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Eliza Bagg, her stunning arrival marked by a billowing, crystalline transmission taken from Lisel's forthcoming debut LP out later this year. "Ciphers" feels less to us like a debut single and more like an immersive portal into a vibrant and fully-formed new universe, radiant and shimmering with otherworldly beauty and light, constructed around Bagg's singular, exquisite voice (which Pitchfork once likened to "a lovelorn alien reaching out from the farthest reaches of the galaxy"). Lisel tells us about the meaning of the song and the significance of its dream-like video, which was directed by Jing Niu:

The word cipher has two meanings — it can be a coded message, but it can also be an empty hole, a zero. The song is about the haunting uncertainty in the pathways that have been set out before you, and realizing these courses have become more ambiguous and disorienting than you thought — at best entangled, at worst empty. There’s also, however, the glimmer of trying to find authenticity within that reality — the background choir serving as the basis for the song is simultaneously pure and glitchy, faulty but still true.

The video is set in three surreal, manufactured landscapes: a celestial beach next to a reflection pool, a dark space where a shadow figure mimics and supports my movement, and a river of red silk. My identity is echoed in the pool and splintered in the shadow figure.

Lisel will perform live at GvsB VII with CHROMATICS, DESIRE, In Mirrors, Helena Deland, and Lou Rebecca on Thursday, May 9th, at the Granada Theater in Dallas, TX.