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“I just hope that whatever I put in, we can arrive further along, somewhere I can’t necessarily even imagine yet”
Elysia Crampton
Applying a narrative to her own homogenous sound, Crampton defines her work as ‘folk music’. Crampton’s use of the term is closer
to its original meaning, in the sense that it involves the construction of a common identity that is constantly being made. For her, the term ‘folk’ ties in to ideas of narrative, history, community and the past, and is related to the future as it transfers from generation to generation. The concept of the future is something that Crampton finds hope in. Musings on deep future influenced the making of Demon City, something that she says was difficult but “a beautiful challenge.” She continues: “I try to think of a future where we survive. The present already makes no space for indigenous and black life but also in a wider sense [the future] makes no space for any of us, logically and scientifically speaking. The sun will die. We’re going to be gone. But I’m hoping that because I push myself, others will push themselves too and we can arrive somewhere really cool.” In her own future, Crampton has tour dates coming up in Italy, the UK and Scandinavia, and is also going to be teaching classes on queer indigenous
and pre-colonial history from Native American perspectives in Oslo and Barcelona. She hopes the project will be a means to repairing the violence that disproportionately affects queer people of colour. Asked where she sees herself in five years, she is optimistic but modest. “I’m hoping this will be working out,” she concludes, “and that everything I’m surrendering to gain the agency that I think I need will pay off in some way, in terms of being a bridge to something that keeps on getting better.” Elysia Crampton Presents: Demon City is out now via Break World Records
MUSIC
In a larger sense, the impetus behind Crampton’s work is survival and liberation. In her words, it’s “a way of coping with the anxieties that were produced out of the compromises and the terms of survival, which have to do with huge things like structural racism and historical erasure. Liberation is the project, and I just hope that whatever I put in – even if I’m criticised for being pretentious – that we can arrive further along, somewhere I can’t necessarily even imagine yet. Despite everything we’re moving forward. I never thought I’d see a time when Pitchfork are writing about Bartolina Sisa!” she exclaims, referring to the 18th century Aymaran revolutionary explored in Demon City track After Woman [For Bartolina Sisa]. “And they’re doing that because we created these narratives and put them in our work. Creating your own narrative is so important.”