April 14, 2024. Two years ago today, I moved from the UK to Japan - from my aunt's ground floor flat in Watford to a 19th floor apartment in Tokyo. Eat Shiitake Now is the story of my journey here. Thank you for listening. If the music moves you, please share it with your friends and family.

All songs are presented chronologically, in the order they were written. From Bristol green, to Watford grey, to Tokyo blue. I recorded the album alone over 18 months in bedrooms at various elevations. There were times I didn't have the energy to sing complete takes. The album is dedicated to my Aunt Elisa. Thank you, loved ones, for helping me find my breath again.

Eli x

credits
released April 14, 2024

Written, recorded, mixed by Eli Carvajal
Bass/Drum Machine (The Laundry Song) by Louis Cherniavsky
Mastered by Tim Debney
Photography by Sayuri Murooka
Back Cover Design by Gareth Rowntree
Special thanks to Imai Cleaning and Moe chan
Dedicated to Elisa Carvajal

The Laundry Song

CELEBRAO feiert die Dunkelheit und das Licht.
Mit überraschenden Kompositionen und wildem Stimmenfeuer,
lädt das Konzert zu einer sinnlichen Erfahrung ein.
Inspiriert vom Ursprung des Theaters - dem Ritual -
führt CELEBRAO hinab in die Tiefe,
dahin wo es glüht, lebt, wogt und still wird.
Dies ohne Worte, jedoch mit umso mehr Klängen und Bildern.

CELEBRAO verschenkt sich -
als musikalische und visuelle Kostbarkeit.
Sinnlich und überraschend.


Von und mit

Franziska Schiltknecht (Stimme), Stefanie Hess (Kontrabass und Stimme), Sara Käser (Violoncello und Stimme), Thomas Troxler oder Simon Wunderlin (Perkussion und Stimme)

Celebrao

Weltbordun

There for you

Does it look like I’ve been crying?
It’s just my allergies
No I have not been thinking about the impossibility 
Of being free from that which binds me 
I won’t say the name 
Or you will roll your eyes and we will get nowhere so fast

I could call it 2nd grade when they made me change my skirt 
Or how we followed the rules 
And still ended up the ones hurt
How we scream into our pillows 
We don’t want to make a scene 
You don’t have to ask me
We can call it allergies 

I still get that feeling when I look into a mirror 
and I’m wearing something that shows more skin than they could bear 
They would pull me aside gently 
And say earnestly, “Aubrey you don’t want to be the reason they fall.”

If I could capture that feeling I’d  put it in a jar
Take it to a famous science laboratory 
Have a PowerPoint behind me, I’d take out my notes 
“There’s a thousand miles between still  they have a hold on me”

If I am the lock
And I am the key
How do they still
Still control me? 

I don’t want to be controlled by their perception of the world 
But I have tried to untangle the knots that they have tied 
And my mind is running free but my body is a statue 
Frozen in the times
My body wasn’t mine 

You’re running out of patience
 I’m running out of life 
Is there a pill I could take to numb my throat from the knife? 

Allergies

day on a train demo

The Unreleasable Tapes

Jambalaya

🐢🐢🐢 
Mi primer álbum, Monumento es una carta de presentación en si, una recopilación de canciones compuestas en pandemia, ordenadas en torno a la idea de construir ladrillo a ladrillo un monumento personal. 

03 Sols

Muti, the prettiest to me

where have you been?

Paper Thin Faith - Alternative Indie Pop

My tears turned into puddles,
on the table where I always write to you.
A mix of sorrow and anguish,
a mix of helplessness and desolation.

Always asking myself why this pause…
the only thing I do is sit and write
about all the things I’ve seen of the future.

And I write…
because the soul doesn’t know how to stay silent,
because there are visions that weigh
like seas that never stop speaking.

I can’t explain so many feelings at once.
I see selfish people, without solidarity,
running, escaping from the flood,
desperate, crying out for help.

And they turn to me, they look at me —
the very same ones who despised me,
the same who spoke ill of me.

And I look…
at their faces filled with fear,
faces that once denied the truth,
now reaching for a piece of sky.

I see them cry in bitterness,
without food, without electricity.
Groups of lonely women,
widows of fate, holding their children,
weeping for what they’ve lost,
without their partners, without their husbands.

And I walk through their lives,
and through them, they show me the future.
Their voices whisper softly:
“My friend… let go of time, let go of the future.”

But what can I do,
if I always see —as on a glowing TV—
what on this planet is going to happen.
What will happen…
what is already happening.

But what can I do,
if I always see —as on a glowing TV—
what on this planet is going to happen.
What will happen…
what is already happening.

day on a train demo

Arctic Parrot

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