ELIZA interview: "Leaving my major label was like leaving a band, I want to help change the world for better, in my own little way"
17.09.2022 - 11:21
/ officialcharts.com
Take your mind back to the year 2010. There you were, wearing your River Island t-shirt with Rihanna's Loud album cover plastered over it, you probably were wearing thick black glasses without any lenses in them.
If you leant over and turned on the radio, you would probably hear one song playing; Pack Up, the jaunty, breakthrough hit by British artist Eliza Doolittle, who would earn two top 10 hits with Pack Up (5) and the Disclosure collaboration You & Me (10) and a Number 3 peak for her self-titled debut album.
But 12 years later, ELIZA, the artist formerly known as Eliza Doolittle, is very far away the candy-coloured aesthetics she pushed back then. Not only is she now an independent artist, leaving her label Parlophone after two albums, but she's also making very different music.
A Sky Without Stars, her second record under the moniker ELIZA, is a classy and introspective album built from stunning, lo-fi R&B that reflects some of Eliza's favourite artists; scion of cool Aaliyah and Kid A-era Radiohead.
"Anyone growing up in this world, you're going to be more connected with your purpose and your mission in life," Eliza tells us over Zoom (from her car, it looks very roomy). "I was very young [when I released] the earlier stuff, and now I'm more connected and energised with what I care about and what I make; where it be personal issues or my wider community, those are the things I want to sing about. I want to help change the world for better, in my own little way."
And across A Sky Without Stars, that's exactly what she does. Even the album's name is a reference to a long-held belief that it would be nice for London to shut off all its lights, all its skyscrapers, so you can actually look up at the bare night