Eli Wallis is an experimental composer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. His latest release “without numbers” is a cosmic collection of mind bending soundscapes that are inspiring, colorful and warm and I seriously can’t get enough of it.
I caught up with Eli to talk about his early musical experiences, how he starting making his own compositions and the making of the new record.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Eli-As a kid when I was only familiar with the music my parents listened to, Pink Floyd and The Clash were my favourites. From my mother and my father respectively: Dark Side of the Moon and a Greatest Hits compilation, often on headphones with a Discman. I listened to Kind of Blue and Art Blakey’s Moanin’ while I was still in elementary school and they sort of lodged in my brain, but I didn’t really get into jazz until I started playing bass later on. I liked The Cars, Tom Petty, The Tragically Hip. Video game music made a big impact on me as well, Koji Kondo in particular.
Once I started delving into bands on my own I gravitated towards metal, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Exodus. My first concert experience was Iron Maiden in Grade 7, with my father. Agalloch’s The Mantle and Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone were teenage favourites. Skinny Puppy’s VIVIsect VI and Cleanse, Fold, and Manipulate. All their albums, really. Went to a lot of death metal and thrash shows.
The album I heard in high-school that most impacted my future noisemaking was definitely David Sylvian’s Blemish, with Derek Bailey, which I stumbled upon online. That blew my mind and broadened my horizons into more experimental and improvisational music. I bought Manafon on release and that was my first time hearing Evan Parker, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Keith Rowe, and Otomo Yoshihide, all of whose individual works have become more important to me later on.
Other influential albums I heard around this time were Johnny Hobo and the Freight Train’s Love Songs for the Apocalypse, The Bad Plus’s These Are The Vistas, Tycho’s Past Is Prologue, and Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92.
CMM-How did you start crafting your own recordings and developing your sound?
Eli-I bought a Zoom H2N on sale for a hundred bucks in probably 2009,when I was 14. I started doing field recordings outside and around the house, doing little bits of guitar, piano, and rented violin. Everything in a loose and free way. No real genre. I’d arrange them in Audacity, which is what I still do. So I started out recording these little experiments mostly out of boredom, without the intention of sharing them with anybody. I think my first recordings went up on Bandcamp in 2010, when it was still a fairly small pond. I didn’t expect anybody to really hear them other than the friends I showed them to, but I enjoyed making album art and arranging pieces. I experimented with chiptunes and other electronic music, primitive recording manipulation in Audacity.
After high-school I spent a few years banging on an acoustic guitar and yelling, in an embarrassingly vulnerable way. Always a single mic, whatever background noise, very confrontational. I worked out some adolescent anger. I traded in a guitar in 2017 and got a Denver acoustic bass, which came to me more naturally than the guitar ever has. I started playing bass with friends.
Later in 2017 on a whim I bought a clarinet at a deep discount and fell in love. Thelonious Monk and Wayne Shorter became compositional influences along with Coltrane. In 2018 I got a bass clarinet and then played that every day until I had some dental trouble in 2020. Accumulated instruments: a flute, an organ, a bassoon, a soprano sax, built a modular synth; everything miraculously cheap on Craigslist. Played in a few different groups, usually more of a jam-band vibe than jazz. Kept recording along the way.
In 2019 I was given a mixer by a family friend. I started recording with something other than the H2N for the first time, though I still use it on occasion. I also remembered Toshimaru Nakamura, and in 2022 began experimenting with no-input mixing board work with him as an inspiration. My current work is a mix of these various strands. I play electroacoustic drone music in a duo with Rebecca Smit every few months.
CMM-You recently released a record called “Without Numbers”. What was the writing and recording process like for these tracks and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Eli-‘without numbers’ came about because I serendipitously inherited a Yamaha pf80 electric piano and a Mackie Onyx 1640 mixing board from family friends who were cleaning out their basement. I love a dusty analog toy, and I try to let my tools speak and sputter and guide the project at hand. I wanted to get to know them.
I had this sort of katabasis structure in mind, with Side A being a descent and Side B wandering the underworld. I improvised with the mixer, did some light editing and extracted the three pieces that make up Side A, then responded with electric piano.
For Side B I started with the text: a public domain recording of Emma Goldman’s essay Minorities Versus Majorities, read by Lee Elliott. I made selections from the text and determined a rough length, then improvised on the mixing board for that length of time. I then rearranged the vocals to the mixing board work, made numerous edits, then finished by once again responding to it on the electric piano.
The cover photo was taken in the field behind my home, looking particularly like a dark wood.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Eli-Tsai Ming-liang’s adaptation of the novel Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany.
CMM-Anything coming up?
Eli-I make games and will have two launching on Steam and itch.io in 2026: Bones for Soup, a queer theatre nightmare, and Monkey Puzzle Dungeon, a pixelated word-puzzle game I co-designed with Rebecca Smit. Both have hour-plus soundtracks I’ve composed that will be forthcoming on Bandcamp.
Right now folks should check out Pity This Busy Monster on Steam, which is an odd little game about a donut factory. That soundtrack is also available on Bandcamp.
