Elke w/ Meg Elsier

“I want more than what I’ve allowed myself to have,” says singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kayla Graninger. For the Nashville artist, who records off-kilter art-pop as Elke, self-restraint was a hard habit to crack: “I’d become a robot to my own thoughts telling me to ‘be good’ and ‘don’t you dare mess up,’” she explains. Her father’s subsequent cancer diagnosis only amplified those repressive tendencies. But when Graninger’s mother called one day with news that the disease hadn’t spread to his brain, it was more than just a relief: Graninger celebrated by going for a highway drive, blasting music, elatedly screaming at the top of her lungs. When the Bluetooth suddenly cut out, she sat in near-silence for the rest of the drive, listening only to her own heavy breathing – a rare purging of her inhibitions, an unexpected beacon of self-rediscovery. That anecdote inspired Elke’s sophomore album, Divine Urge, out now on Congrats Records.

Elke was born to be an artist, but first, she had to figure out how to be herself. As an admittedly “super unusual” and often misunderstood child, adapting to the world around her meant hiding her true self – not a sustainable or healthy tactic for a Leo who came out of the womb singing and dancing. Where Elke found she could be her true self, however, was in nature.