Biography

Arriving fully formed with her debut EP, the bedroom pop artisan Keeper E. turns her classical music background into something that’s equal parts old-soul wisdom and contemporary performance: It searches. It questions. It laments. It hopes. Born Adelle Elwood in Nova Scotia, she picked up the violin at three, and sat at the piano for the first time the following year. It was in the middle of her classical piano performance degree, at Mount Allison University in the tiny marsh-side arts haven of Sackville, New Brunswick, that she began composing diary-like folk songs about life and love. In school she practiced Bach, Debussy, and Bartok, and in her leisure time she sketched out her own melodies on acoustic guitar. Once she began recording the album’s seven songs—which are self-produced with the skill and confidence of a veteran engineer—her sound began to change, layering synths, beats, and effects with her clean and sincere voice at the centre. If you combined the bare honesty of Mitski, the adventurous production of Vampire Weekend, and the vibe of Sylvan Esso, you’d get something close to Keeper E.