At the beginning of 2024, experimental Danish pop artist Elias Bendix began a new process of releasing a new single every full moon. March 25th sees the release of ‘Where’ve You Been?’, a follow-up to ‘Did My Light Go Out?’, which hit major Danish playlists such as New Music Friday Denmark and The New Ones, while music blog Undertoner featured it as their Friday Single of the Week. International blogs such as Glamglare and East Portland Blog also praised Elias Bendix, who has moved in a more indie-pop direction than he started out with in 2018.
A bad experience with ayahuasca
On ‘Where’ve You Been?’ Elias Bendix deals with some family issues that have been affecting his life for many years. The song was born after an ayahuasca experience in Bolivia a few years ago. The ayahuasca experience, which is known to be harsh but also healing for the psyche, had a completely different effect on Elias the first time he tried it.
“Ayahuasca is widely used in South America to process traumatic experiences and to gain deeper insight into one’s emotional life, and in a way I did. But it’s important that the shaman guiding you through the psychedelic experience is in control and able to create a sense of safety around it. It felt more like a tourist attraction with people who had no idea what they were doing”, Elias Bendix explains the episode and continues:
“I accessed a dream world where I felt, on behalf of my entire family, that there was an inherited feeling of being left behind. It was very much a statement of fact and not super healing or positive as I had hoped”, he elaborates on the experience.
Elias has since tried it at an event in Denmark, where he says he had a better and actually quite therapeutic experience. He attributes the success to the fact that the organizers actually knew how to create a safe environment around him.
Inspired by Radiohead’s ‘Pyramid Song’
Although the first of these experiences did not go according to plan, it did have a positive outcome in the form of ‘Where’ve You Been?’.
The song was recorded with a string quartet during Elias’ studies at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, and the recordings have since been carefully treated by producer Lars Villumsen, who has managed to pull it in the direction of ‘Pyramid Song’ by Radiohead. Elias describes the sound as both cinematic and nostalgic at the same time.
Get ready to listen to ‘Where’ve You Been’ when it’s released on the full moon on Monday, March 25th.