LOST CHILDHOOD TAPES / THE STORY BEHIND

Atmospheric. Meditative. Dreamlike. A tender document of memory, healing, & rediscovery.

“Lost childhood Tapes” are piano melodies I wrote when I was around the age of 14 to 16 and which I once recorded in order not to forget them. Years later I found them - accidentally, looking through old stuff - a cd with all of them on it- inside a box. I felt amazing & I had an instant flashback….Images and memories…. me as a child spending amounts of time locked in my room practicing and playing, drinking tea & eating zwiebacks with honey, reading books, watching movies, listening to music, writing…….. winter times.

It’s a meditative, ambient piano album with some dreamy & epic touches with a touch childlike playing. A timeless feeling where time passes by but you don’t really feel it. You are present and it gives space. With not many distractions. It should be as simple as possible. Listening back, it felt as if the teenager who wrote these melodies was reaching out to meet me inviting me to remember her, to embrace her, and to carry her forward with me.

I created this album after a year away from substitutes. I wanted to be as pure as possible and to observe and feel life in a way a child does. To be still. To sit in stillness /

AND PAUSE, to FEEL THE UNCOMFORTABLE FEELINGS

because that's exactly where the magic lies. Kids mostly observe and experiment…
LOST CHILDHOOD TAPES is about reconnecting with this child in you, the one you always wanted to be but somehow along the way, someone told you different and fortunately or unfortunately you believed it.

Sometimes when I remember my childhood I feel a sense of alienation (as the dictionary says: a state in which a person distances himself from himself and the world, and submits to an order of things resulting in the alteration of his personality characteristics) that's why I start the album with love & death:
I believe  that:
“ALL WHAT YOU LOVE, AT SOME POINT WILL DIE & SOMETHING ELSE WILL BE BORN.
I BELIEVE THAT LOVE AND DEATH are intertwined, they go together.
IN DEATH, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING HIDDEN THAT YOU LOVE OR HAVE LOVED.”

Every day we create temporary deaths, perhaps subconsciously. Within the weight of the word, there is a lightness hidden (a feeling of lightness).

I think with this album I reconnect with a self I forgot to be and deactivate habits and release weight that weren't mine to carry. To filter.. I believe we all have lost a piece of our childhood innocence at some point. Our imagination has been harmed believing, we are something that we are not or to see life or ourselves in a way that is not ours. Our brain has been raped and we must go in there to heal it, so we can move on and keep loving.

Better to move on after 20 years than never. If you are still alive take a year and heal yourself do everything that you could not do in your childhood because of invisible walls. Explore, do what feels comfortable, try to release the fear. Do all the things that are fun spend all your money to fulfil everything that wasn't fulfilled, meet yourself and once you meet him keep her/him. Reduce all the garbage that keeps space in your mind and makes you blind. Clean and make space to put nice *objects* in there.

Grieve the outgrowing of friends, of lovers, of the life you've previously created for yourself and give it space to think about what your younger self-lacked and intentionally give it yourself now. Whether it's more freedom to play, the validation you craved, to grieve more openly or the ability to ask for what you need, without fear.

For some reason, at some point I believed that playing the piano is nothing special or that I don't play well, I was frightened to play in front of others. Being a kid and hear things like that can have a huge impact. At some point I happened to hear something and then I believed it! I even wanted to burn my diploma, because I literally thought that they just did me a favour when they gave it to me. That’s how negative it impacted me. With this album, I want to undo that thought and give myself the opportunity for these melodies to be heard to embrace them.

I think as a kid I grieved through my piano at some point. It was the only safe way to express and feel heard somehow.
There is an irreplaceable feeling to express through music. It has two perspectives , it creates feelings to both sides (the one who plays and the one who listens and can be enjoyable or not is somehow relative. But its a win-win situation and it does not impose.)

Most of the population never felt seen or craves to be seen. Have you ever wondered why? Because in my point of view, there is not enough space for grief. This mania of pleasure is so spread, there is this idea, that we must avoid as much as possible - to feel pain. A constant numbness.

BUT IN ORDER TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE YOU NEED TO LEARN HOW TO DIE… That’s how you grow.

And in a metaphorically way you need to grief what you once were even if you loved it. Feel it and let it go. As a guest visiting and say farewell. It is still part of you but more evolved. Don’t cage It let it open, in this huge cosmos of exploration and magic, let it love. I think, I understood now, that for me - this is the ultimate self-love.

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”The Cricket Song” ”The Cricket Song” ”The Cricket Song” ”The Cricket Song” ”The Cricket Song” ”The Cricket Song”
————(read lyrics below)——————————————————————————————————————————-

Metaphorically, crickets represent a wide range of meanings from good fortune and wisdom to awkward silence and loneliness. It also represents the weight of time and the survival of the voice beyond the wear and tear of the body.

“The Cricket Song,”  is a piece written two years ago in my childhood room. The piece word's arrived during a moment of intense anxiety & pattern realisation from a young age, becoming a kind of comfort and acknowledgment of the need to let go of a self that had outlived its place. It's a song of comfort. It was the moment  where I caught myself being super anxious to change a situation that was out of my control. Somehow ‘‘I’’ was resisting to change. I had to let go of something that was no longer me. We could say, this song was the missing puzzle piece.

This album is a reconciliation of the young me and my present self. It’s like the younger version of me wanted to reconnect, like she left these melodies behind as a message for my future self.

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 ultimately a reconciliation between the young self and the present one - an emotional meeting across time. It feels as though my younger version- intentionally left these melodies behind, as messages for her future self, waiting to be rediscovered.

It is a bridge between who we once were and who we are becoming.
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If you red until hear I want you to know that I appreciate you! Thanks for listening!

LOVE
Elisa

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