Ellise

Ellise crafts warped, theatrical pop anchored by her supple vocals and steeped in shadowy whimsy. A string of concise releases in the late 2010s brought sudden attention when “911” caught fire from the 2018 EP Can You Keep a Secret?. Her first full-length album, Chaotic, appeared in 2021. Two October-themed seasonal projects preceded joint ventures that included “Soul Sucker, Pt. 2” with the stylistically aligned DeathbyRomy and Mothica; late 2023 then delivered the candidly introspective ballad “She Ruins Everything.”

Raised in California’s Bay Area, Ellise Mariana Gitas first felt drawn to singing after performing a Kelly Clarkson song at a fourth-grade school event. She auditioned for The X Factor while still a young teen in 2013 and had settled in Los Angeles by the time she appeared on iHeartRadio Rising Star in 2016. That same year she issued her earliest track, the straightforward “Breakdown,” and was featured in the web documentary series Uncharted, still performing under her complete name.

Adopting the shorter name Ellise, she debuted with “Dominoes” in 2016. After leaving her original label, she independently released the more stylized “Love Made Me Do It” in early 2018. Later that year Hell Bent Heaven Sent issued the EP Can You Keep a Secret?, which contained “911,” the track that spread rapidly across social platforms and accumulated millions of streams. Another EP, Under My Bed, followed in 2019 before “911” was added to her debut album Chaotic, released in May 2021 on Hell Bent Heaven Sent/Empire. A month later she made her live debut with a staged online performance of the album’s title track. The eight-song, Halloween-oriented Letting the Wolf In arrived that October. She closed 2021 with the Savage Ga$p and Chevy collaboration “go bestie” as well as another team-up on “Soul Sucker, Pt. 2” with DeathbyRomy and Mothica.

A run of solo singles appeared throughout 2022, among them “Black Balloons” and “Did It Hurt?”. The October album OVER HER DEAD BODY surfaced in 2023, followed in December by the more earnest non-album ballad “She Ruins Everything.”