A side project of melodic ambient pop from Australian producer Elizabeth Maniscalco.

Recorded live at Club 77 back in November 2020, Lazydaze 35 is a set of original music from Halcyon Phase - an ambient side project from Australia’s Elizabeth Maniscalco (aka BRUX) - ahead of a forthcoming album release.

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Can you tell us a bit about the idea behind the Halcyon Phase project? What inspired it?

Truthfully, I've been wanting to make an instrumental melodic ambient record for years. It was the live show at Club 77 that prompted it into fruition. The upcoming LP is centred around our intrinsic connection to the earth and our communication with all things living. We can communicate with every living thing around us, we just have to lean in and listen.

I spent two months living up in the Blue Mountains NSW in June/July of 2020 and was hugely inspired by that retreat. I felt a true connection to my natural surroundings up there and it lured me into a beautiful healing headspace.

Are there any particular artists/movements/eras that influenced the music?

Definitely. I'm a big fan of Gigi Masin, Brian Eno and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and listening to Apollo (Eno) and Wind (Masin) daily for the past four years has been instrumental to this new direction. Writing and recording music in this space is hugely soothing for me - it's definitely a form of therapy.

How does your approach to writing this kind of music differ compared to BRUX material or say a dance floor track?

It's as if I access a different part of my brain, I think. It’s difficult to fully articulate because the art form remains a mystery to me, but I seem to access a super introspective, reflective and calm place when writing ambient. Whereas for a BRUX track, I'm feeding off pent up energy from a different place. It's like yin and yang. I guess one can't exist without the other.

How did your live performance of the Halcyon Phase material at the Club 77 event ‘Please Remain Seated’ come about? And how did you decide to approach performing the music in a live context compared to the original recordings?

I was recording a BRUX livestream set at Club 77 back in October 2020 (shoutout to legend Tim Poulton!) and he floated the idea of me playing a live ambient set for a show he was hosting there in November. At that point I had already written two lullaby sketches just for fun, so my intention was to flesh these two out and write five more for the show. While composing, I was thinking about how I would play them live - I'm a keys player so each song is heavily keys based. It was the most interesting (and at times challenging!) creative experiment I've ever thrown myself into.

Will there be an official release of the album?

Yes! More on that soon.

You recently relocated from Sydney to New York. How has it been so far and is there anything about the city you’ve found inspirational as an artist? Are things starting to open up again for live music and clubbing?

The move has been quite an experience! Eight months on, I still feel like I'm settling in - there's so much to experience and see. I very much feel like a tourist. The creative scene here is pretty wild - I'm most inspired by how limitless people feel to express themselves. Embracing and leaning into the weird! Live music venues are all open now and show offers are coming in. It's surreal.

What can we expect from Halcyon Phase in the future?

I envision Halcyon Phase to be a hub for all of my creative pursuits - photography, art, textiles and meditation. I'm in the process of making more music and plan to collaborate with film makers too for composing.