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Apr 02, 2026
eliseRS: Matrescence in Music
Since music was recorded and far before then, parenthood has been a perennial source of inspiration for artists. But the specific idea of matrescence – the transformative process of becoming a mother – is what eliseRS chose as the subject of her album Life We’ve Known, made in the wake of her daughter’s birth.
Every aspect of motherhood, from the divine to the difficult, and so much in between, inspired Elise Reitze-Swensen to create this bright, effervescent 20-track record. Along the way she found many surprising links between her artistic process and her experience parenting, learning to find comfort in the chaos, confidence in tiny work windows, and an appreciation for happy accidents.
We spoke to eliseRS to hear more about how her own process of matrescence became Life We’ve Known, her work inspiring other female creatives (including many mothers) to create music of their own, and how this major life shake-up impacted her practice as a producer and songwriter.
To start, tell us where Life We’ve Known, an album about matrescence began. A lot of artists have children, not all of them write music about it. What made this project into a reality for you?
During my first few months post-partum, I was not only shocked and unprepared for new parenthood, but for the change in my own identity. I kept telling myself it would only be a little bit longer until I would go back to my old self and my usual way of living life. The months passed and it dawned on me there was no going back. Matrescence isn’t just a change you go through – change implies you can change back. It is a transformation, you are someone new entirely and you really have to accept that.
I started planning this project and album at four months postpartum as a way of understanding my new identity and as a way of connecting with other new mothers around me (including my collaborators). I am a music producer, but this album is the first time I have sung on my own music – music is such a powerful tool for understanding the human experience and I have finally found my voice.
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You believe matrescence to be an unexplored and undervalued subject within the arts. What are some of the reasons you think so?
We live in a patriarchal society where mothers and children are often bottom of the pile in terms of priority. It is no wonder matrescence is underexplored and underdiscussed. Before becoming a mum, I spent the past decade empowering women to pursue skills and careers in music production – an area where men outnumber women 35:1. I founded not-for-profit Women of Music Production (WOMP), a community of over 700 women producers across Australia, to create the change I want to see.
“Matrescence isn’t just a change you go through – change implies you can change back. It is a transformation, you are someone new entirely and you really have to accept that.”
Everything I do is grounded in my mission to improve gender equity, and the exploration of matrescence is a natural extension of this. Currently, women who are going through matrescence and not being properly supported. If we want change, we need social discourse and music is the perfect opportunity to platform this discussion. This topic is for everyone, because if we don’t support mothers, parents, and children, we can’t have a functional society.
eliseRS - “Body”
Having a child makes a massive impact on how you can physically make music; where you can do it, how much time you have to create, and such. How did these new limitations influence how you work?
Having a child has made me more creative and confident in my practice. I trust my creative instincts and achieve creative flow much faster – maybe because I have to or maybe because my brain is wired differently now. I am much more productive and driven. Before having my daughter, I would have never dreamed of making a 20-track double album! You definitely need to be able to make music anywhere and be okay with the conditions and/or time frame not being perfect. Turns out you can make a lot of music during a 40-minute nap.
Many of these compositions were written in blocks of time and I think the time to be away and reflect on what I had written before jumping back in actually made the music the best it can be. There are some takes on this record where my daughter was sleeping in the room next door, so while the vocals aren’t all perfect, if I tried to re-record in the right studio environment, it lost the essence of what it was to begin with. I love the imperfections on the record, it is reflective of parenthood itself.
“You definitely need to be able to make music anywhere and be okay with the conditions and/or time frame not being perfect. Turns out you can make a lot of music during a 40-minute nap.”
You’ve involved your child directly in the creation of this album. Could you speak to how you managed to do that?
My two-year-old daughter loves music production, because that's what she sees me do. If I got interrupted while writing or recording, I let her be involved. She loves singing with Auto Shift and has recorded some backing vocals and samples of her toys on many tracks, which was really special to capture.
eliseRS - “Matriphagy”
A few tracks on the album (Matriphagy, Battery to name a few) wrestle with some of the more intense aspects of pregnancy, giving birth and motherhood. Can you speak to how you tried to capture this intensity in the music?
Every track on the album reflects the tone musically of the subject matter. Battery, a song about severe sleep deprivation, I recorded on a day I had only had three hours of uninterrupted sleep when my daughter was teething. I sound tired because I was. I didn’t stack any vocals, I didn’t attempt to give the chorus any oomph vocally, and I used pitch drop to break up the music abruptly to mirror what it is actually like to get woken up every 40 minutes – it feels like less than a few seconds of sleep sometimes.
Matriphagy, a concept taken from the animal kingdom where for example, some spiders eat their mothers alive shortly after birth, is a direct reflection of moments in my breastfeeding journey. I have given up my body for the benefit of my child, it is a huge sacrifice and commitment. The music is the same loop over and over again with slight variation – this is what breastfeeding is – especially in those first months where you are breastfeeding around the clock.
I love the way you draw lines between very technical production techniques – such as MPE [MIDI Polyphonic Expression] synthesis or generative music – and very natural processes like breastfeeding, emotion, or birth. How are these two topics related, in your mind?
I love MPE and the imperfections you can create with MPE controllers. It is my favourite way to perform and create music using MIDI. Many of the concepts and themes about matrescence are imperfect and many of my real life experiences through matrescence have been improvised. I have no idea what I am doing as a new parent, which actually makes life quite playful and creative. Similarly in music, there are no rules, I am just getting creative and often improvising or experimenting.
My album has a lot of generative tools used, which I let run and curate the best bits into meaningful musical phrases. I chose to use generative tools on this record because it was like me letting go and not trying to control every aspect. These generative layers are just details within the music, but play into the fact that as a parent, you aren’t ever in control of your child. My daughter is her own unique person and I don’t always know what she is going to do next.
Part of the core experience of Life We’ve Known is going to be an immersive installation. Can you tell us about how you envisioned this, and why it was so critical to the project?
I always envisioned Life We’ve Known as something immersive rather than something you simply listen to front-on. I wanted the listener to feel surrounded by the work in the same way the body is surrounded during pregnancy. I have made paired visuals to every album track using Max for Live and creatively automated the spatialised panning of music and sound.
“The music is the same loop over and over again with slight variation – this is what breastfeeding is – especially in those first months where you are breastfeeding around the clock.”
My installation will be an 8-speaker spatialised sound and visual experience representing a womb around the listener. That immersion is critical to the project because matrescence is not something you observe from the outside. The installation allows the audience to experience that sense of enclosure, disorientation, and intimacy in a physical way, rather than just understanding it intellectually.
It’s a common artist’s refrain to compare releasing an album to having a child. What are your thoughts on that turn of phrase, on the other side of this project?
Well, I am about to do both! I am currently pregnant with my second child and I literally feel like I am about to give birth to two babies. It takes a lot of time and resources to create a record of this size and a similar amount of time to grow a baby. For me personally, growing a baby is much easier and my body makes fingernails and eyelashes while I just go about my day. This record has been a lot of work and conscious decision making. I know this record intimately, it is me as music, whereas my unborn child, I have no clue who they are yet. I hope they both feel as good to birth into the world.