Eli Lev is the talented indie folk-pop singer/songwriter who uses music as an extension of himself. Prior to becoming a full time musician, the Silver Spring, MD native spent three years as an 8th grade English teacher on the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona. The indigenous traditions he learned during this time are the inspiration for his Four Directions project, released in completion in 2021.
Eli’s latest project is his new EP Walk.Talk.Dance.Sing, the indie folk pop EP that consists of his 4 previously released singles “Be Your Someone,” “Dancing on the Lawn,” “Move As You Do,” and “Vacation,” and the new single released alongside the EP called “Singing Along for the First Time.” The EP was inspired by the pandemic and each song encompasses a certain aspect of it that we all went through as a collective.
“Be Your Someone” leads the EP and takes on the quarantine. This folk pop song, with a Bon Iver meets Ben Harper style, is about Eli and his partner learning to co-exist with each other and embracing their new reality. “Dancing on the Lawn,” the second song, has a Jason Mraz style to it. He sings about hope and knowing that one day, we will all connect with each other through live music again. “Move As You Do” is a reminder that life happens and things are not in your control. Your future may not be shaping up the way you want it to, but the milestones will still come. “Vacation” is another song that has a Jason Mraz with a Caribbean vibe. Eli sings about finding the fun in the mundane that is our lives.
The last song on the EP, “Singing Along for the First Time,” was released in tandem with the EP. With a Jason Mraz meets Ed Sheeran style and sound, this pop song is a celebration of music and how it lights us up. When we realize what music can do to our hearts and souls and bodies, there’s this new yet ancient reckoning of us re-becoming our human selves and what it means to be part of the larger community of humanity.
“Walk.Talk.Dance.Sing was inspired by the entire range of emotions that we all went through as the world around us changed overnight, and we reimagined what our lives could be like and how we connect with each other as human beings over two years of a pandemic,” shares Eli. “The writing process was fraught with isolation and yearning for creativity and connection, but also each song a miracle in the fact that it even came to existence during a lockdown. Virtual sessions, remote jam sessions, online collaborations, and masked recording time in the studio came to fruition in these five singles. I wanted to convey a message of humanity and hope, that anything and everything is possible no matter the odds, and that it is up to us to create our communities in our own image of strength and positivity”
Find Eli Lev via:
Website // Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // YouTube // TikTok // Spotify // Soundcloud