3 October 2024

What was the inspiration behind the album?
The album came out of a songwriting challenge called February Album Writing Month that I did in February 2022. The challenge is to write 14 songs in the 28 days of February. I kept telling myself ‘they don’t have to be good, they just have to be finished’. Turns out, 11 of those 14 were actually pretty good and made it onto the album.
Did the pandemic have an impact when recording the album?
Absolutely! The Eleanor Collides project started during the pandemic. I had been writing songs for many years, just for myself – I had no plans to release them, or even record them properly. When the pandemic happened I reassessed a lot of things in my life and decided to try and take my music beyond my bedroom. I taught myself how to record and mix music and released my first EP. Three years later and I’m two albums deep into this music thing and I’m writing my third!
How long did the album take to create from start to finish?
It was about 2 years from writing the songs to releasing the album. That’s quite a long time, but it’s very much a solo effort. I mixed and mastered a lot of the songs myself, in between working a day job. I was also finishing the songs one at a time then releasing singles, promoting them then working on the next one.
Do you have any personal favourite tracks?
‘Lifeboats’ will always be a special song for me. It was the first song to be released and it was the first time I felt like people took notice of what I was doing. It made it onto Spotify’s ‘Spooky’ editorial playlist and stayed there for over a year. It’s still a staple of my live set.
What do you have coming up in the next 12 months?
I’m currently writing album three. I also have a few remixes and collaborations in the pipeline which I’m looking forward to.
Genre: Indie, singer-songwriter
Released: 21st March 2024
Eleanor Collides is a Dartford solo artist called Nick Ranga. You can find out more on his website or via Amazon Music, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Deezer, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify or TikTok.