Elysia Crampton

Elysia Paula Chuquimia Crampton is an American experimental electronic musician. Her work is known for taking heavy detail in exploring Latinx culture, queer identity and its historic roots, subversion of macho cultural tropes, South American spirituality, naturalist themes, and frequent utilization of samples from varied sources.

Elysia Crampton began making music under the moniker E+E in 2008. Crampton's work as E+E mostly consisted of edits and remixes made with a keyboard, acapellas, and a sampler. Crampton self-released two albums, three extended plays, and one compilation of remixes and edits under the E+E alias.

In 2015 Crampton ceased using the E+E alias and released her first studio album, American Drift, under her real name. The album took three years to make and was made as a way to describe her unique experience of finding a home in Virginia in the aforementioned years. The album was released on August 7, 2015, and was met with critical success. The music review website Pitchfork gave the album an 8.1 out of 10 and said, in praise:

"The Virginia producer Elysia Crampton's debut album is only four songs long, but it represents a monumental undertaking. She has described it as an exploration of Virginia's history as well as a meditation on brownness, on being Latina, and as a kind of geology. Her epiphanies feel hard-won, and they shine all the more brightly for it."

Crampton released her second album, Elysia Crampton Presents: Demon City, on July 22, 2016. It was a collaboration with friends/peers including Houston producer Rabit, Danish producer Why Be, London producer Lexxi, and Alabama producer Chino Amobi. Music review Web site Tiny Mix Tapes gave the album a 4.5 out of 5, while Pitchfork said: "Demon City, Virginia producer Elysia Crampton's follow-up to her sumptuous debut American Drift, is a wonder of concision and represents another massive leap forward in her growth," of the album.

Crampton's music is notable for drawing from an eclectic and wide variety of influences, both musical and conceptual. For this, she has used the simple tag prog to describe her music. During the time of the making of Elysia's album American Drift, she was living in rural Virginia and being inspired by the expansive local geographical features around the area, described as "wild Southern surroundings", in the area, one of which was the Shenandoah Mountain. She previously made journeys around it, with one inspiring track two of American Drift, 'Petrichrist'. Elysia is heavily inspired by varying forms of cultural music and the interesting sound design that often accompanies them, although her upbringing and roots in music have influenced her and show their presence. In an interview, she once remarked that "the older I get, the uglier I want my music to feel, to be".

In 2015, her musical influences while recording American Drift became a long range of styles; Southern hip hop/crunk, Latin metal, North American psychedelic folk, neo-classical music, ragtime, early blues, her brother's avant-garde records, and her grandfather's collection of huayno and cumbia tapes, which showed predominately among her use of samples and rhythms with a highly digital touch and taste for atmospheric soundscapes.

Through music, the post-colonial divide between Peru and Bolivia was bridged for me, and I was allowed to glimpse an ancient, illusive moment of my heritage that barred nationalistic dividings. The mixture of electronic and acoustic sounds, especially in huayno, provided inspiration that has stuck to this day. The incorporation of these textures into my own voice never had to be deliberately sought out; these ancestral/familial narratives, languages, tones, colors… moved with me as I musically came of age.

Crampton also cited many individuals as influences for her 2015 album American Drift, including José Esteban Muñoz (a noted Cuban-American queer theorist), black pianist Margaret Bonds, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (a writer and professor in Medieval studies) and queer performance artist/friend Boychild.

Crampton has said that her 2016 album, Elysia Crampton Presents: Demon City, was written in the style of a musical epic poem. She said that the album was inspired by Aymaran revolutionary Bartolina Sisa, who is often remembered in indigenous history. The album is a companion piece to Crampton's theatrical production & DJ set, Dissolution of the Sovereign: A Timeslide into the Future, written and performed as both a 'visual & performative essay', a sci-fi style play, and a futuristic coda to Sisa's story with a passionate narrative revolving around her severed limbs.

Crampton took piano and keyboard lessons as a child, but later started taking music seriously after her teenage years, around 2007 to 2008. She was born and grew up around the outside of Los Angeles. Crampton lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving between the United States and Mexico for most of her life before settling down in Weyer's Cave, Virginia, where her family owned an old Italian restaurant. After finishing up her first studio album, American Drift, Elysia had to, in passion, move from Virginia to Pacajes, Bolivia to care for her grandmother Flora.

When Crampton was younger, and living in Los Angeles, she worked as an escort. She was in and out of rehab until she learned how to meditate at a Scientology-based center at which she spent a little over a year. After finishing with the center, Crampton tried to move back in to her old life in Los Angeles but found it didn't suit her anymore. Crampton ran away to Virginia around the same time.

As E+E

Studio albums

• Promise (2012, Weird Magic)
• The Light That You Gave Me to See You (2013, self-released)

Extended plays

• Bound Adam (2011, self-released)
• Smile (2012, Cadence Collective)
• E-Edits 2012–2013 (2014, self-released)

Compilations

• Edited/Remixed [2008–2012] (2014, self-released)

As Elysia Crampton

Studio albums

• American Drift (2015, Blueberry Recordings)
• Elysia Crampton Presents: Demon City (2016, Break World Records)

Singles

• Moth/Lake (2015, Boomkat Editions)
• Flora's Theme (2016, Williams Street Records)