Prism of Pleasure

When Elkka turned her sights towards making a debut album after a run of critically acclaimed EPs that established her as one of dance music’s most exciting breakthrough talents, she knew she wanted the record to come from a very personal place. “I really thought about what inspires me,” the Welsh DJ/producer tells Apple Music. “Where have I come from? Where am I now in my life, in my thirties as a woman? Those themes just poured through. One of my main inspirations has always been women and women’s sensuality, and sexuality is something that’s always been at the forefront of what I do. It felt very natural to pour that into the record.” The result is Prism of Pleasure, an album of beguiling emotional scope, where vulnerability and strength are at the heart of songs that range from club bangers to ambient techno to euphoric house anthems, the presence of Elkka’s vocal adding a soulful intensity. “I think when you challenge yourself as a musician and you expose certain parts of yourself, things really translate musically. I wanted people to feel like I’ve poured myself into this.” After her father passed away during the album’s creation, Elkka found a new resilience to push forward. “I decided I had to finish this and I had to do that for him, for me, for my family. He wouldn’t have wanted his passing to derail my passion and my future,” she says. Read on as she guides us through a poignant, propulsive debut, track by track. “Break all my walls down” “Opening the record with my voice was quite important as a statement of what I want this record to be about. That vulnerability in singing is very different to a dance track without me on it, which I’ve done before. This song is very much like I’m pouring myself out to you here, that I’ll give everything to you to make sure that you love me and that you feel my love. I wrote this track because I needed someone to hear that, so it’s not a made-up story, it's very much part of my life. [It] was quite important to me for