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“With music you feel a moment that you already lived in the past, or a moment you will live in the future or a moment you will never have at all. It travels with you and saves you.” CALMDOWN is a musician.
BIO
CALMDOWN was born around 2012. It’s the sonic world or as she calls it her “escape room” of Elisa Irini Vidalis, a Greek-born, Berlin-based composer, producer, vocalist, and interdisciplinary artist whose work moves between electronica, art-pop, trip-hop, classical, and cinematic sound design.
LOST CHILDHOOD TAPES – The New Album (11.01.2026)
Her new release, Lost Childhood Tapes, marks a complete shift from her previous work. This ambient, minimalist piano album is built from melodies Elisa composed between the ages of 14 & 16 - melodies forgotten for years until she rediscovered them on an old CD.
Created after a year away from distractions and substitutes, the album is a return to purity and stillness. It is gentle, spacious, emotional - music that feels both timeless and deeply personal. Lost Childhood Tapes invites listeners to reconnect with their inner child, to sit with stillness, to feel the uncomfortable feelings we tend to avoid, and to release what no longer serves us.
It is a bridge between who we once were and who we are becoming.
Atmospheric. Meditative. Dreamlike.
A tender document of memory, healing, & rediscovery.
On stage, CALMDOWN performs mainly solo but sometimes with a full band, blending electronic production with live harp, drums, & saxophone. Her shows move like immersive rituals - wired with visuals, poetry, & vulnerability - so essential to her artistic universe that she often records & releases them as standalone works.
Her philosophy is simple and radical:
''THROUGH MUSIC YOU CAN FEEL A MOMENT THAT YOU LIVED IN THE PAST, OR A MOMENT YOU WILL LIVE IN THE FUTURE OR A MOMENT YOU WILL NEVER EXPERIENCE AT ALL. IT TRAVELS WITH YOU AND SAVES
YOU.'' CÅLMDOWN
Her story begins at eight years old, riding a bicycle by the sea when a stranger’s piano melody cut through the air. Something shifted. She decided in that moment that she wanted to learn the piano - to create sounds that could expand the world around her. She spent her childhood composing with a battered piano and low-quality mics, chasing the pure feeling that music unlocked. Obsessed with sound in all its forms, she taught herself saxophone, guitar, harmonica, and drifted through mostly classical study, pop, rock, blues & jazz - discovering that everything, no matter the genre, points back to one thing: expression.
At 19, she left the island where she grew up and moved to Berlin to deepen her craft and explore her mother’s German roots. She trained at the German Pop Academy, graduating at 22 as a composer, arranger, and orchestrator. At 23, she earned her classical piano diploma with distinction - preparing entirely on her own, unable to afford a private teacher at the time.
Since 2012, CALMDOWN has existed as her independent universe - a one-woman operation built from instinct, discipline, and obsession. After joining the artist collective Kulturschlund, she shaped years of writing and recording into her debut album We Will Make It, We Will Win Darling, which LIFO Magazine named Best Album of 2014.
Multiple albums, EPs, a documentary, and a poetry book followed. Her sound is raw, symbolic, emotional - a place where hypnotic electronics meet fierce vocals and dreamlike storytelling.
Her 2018 album CALMDOWN AIRLINES earned a nomination for Best Newcomer at the Listen to Berlin Music Awards. In 2021 she collaborated with trip-hop pioneer Howie B (Björk, Tricky, Brian Eno), who remixed her single Seasalt Symphony. From 2021–2023 her project PRISONER K was funded twice and culminated in the album PINK - a visceral, fearless closing chapter of a deeply personal trilogy.