2 hrs 18 min
Episode 221: Elizabeth Goodfellow Independent's Day
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- Music Interviews
Drummer, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Goodfellow has built a career for herself out of playing with an ever-growing number of innovative artists. You may have seen her onstage or heard her on records by Iron and Wine, Madison Cunningham, Calexico, Orkesta Mendoza, the indie-pop supergroup called boygenius made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, the New York-based jazz ensemble The Hot Sardines, and the recently multiple Grammy-nominated Allison Russell. She brings a creative approach and a studied work ethic to her collaborations that are rare in the music industry, and indeed nearly any other discipline. When you’re as good as Goodfellow is, people take notice – and it’s the kind of devotion to her craft that earned her a feature in Modern Drummer magazine in 2018. And if that’s not enough, she has more recently added the titles of singer, songwriter, and composer to her impressive list of talents. Her compositions feature the marimba, angular vocal melodies, and personally fearless lyrics, as well as exploring the creative possibilities of audio looping and sampling technology in a whole new way. Utilizing the ability to layer sounds in real time during a performance, it would be easy to overlook the degree of difficulty in Goodfellow’s mesmerizing percussive soundscapes. But go ahead and get lost in her songs. It’s a hell of a ride and it’s worth every mallet strike.
She released a vinyl single in 2021 called “Terror and Trust,” a title that could serve as a mission statement for her unique and courageous approach to making music. She makes it look easy, but it is assuredly not.
Drummer, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Goodfellow has built a career for herself out of playing with an ever-growing number of innovative artists. You may have seen her onstage or heard her on records by Iron and Wine, Madison Cunningham, Calexico, Orkesta Mendoza, the indie-pop supergroup called boygenius made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, the New York-based jazz ensemble The Hot Sardines, and the recently multiple Grammy-nominated Allison Russell. She brings a creative approach and a studied work ethic to her collaborations that are rare in the music industry, and indeed nearly any other discipline. When you’re as good as Goodfellow is, people take notice – and it’s the kind of devotion to her craft that earned her a feature in Modern Drummer magazine in 2018. And if that’s not enough, she has more recently added the titles of singer, songwriter, and composer to her impressive list of talents. Her compositions feature the marimba, angular vocal melodies, and personally fearless lyrics, as well as exploring the creative possibilities of audio looping and sampling technology in a whole new way. Utilizing the ability to layer sounds in real time during a performance, it would be easy to overlook the degree of difficulty in Goodfellow’s mesmerizing percussive soundscapes. But go ahead and get lost in her songs. It’s a hell of a ride and it’s worth every mallet strike.
She released a vinyl single in 2021 called “Terror and Trust,” a title that could serve as a mission statement for her unique and courageous approach to making music. She makes it look easy, but it is assuredly not.
2 hrs 18 min