Ill-Esha's "CRYPTOWAVES" is a Crypto Sound Design NFT Experience

Elysha Zaide is a Canadian born electronic music artist, producer, singer and DJ known for her work in the bass music world, as well as her unique style of singing and DJing simultaneously. She produces music as “ill-esha” and teaches sound design at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain. During my time in bass music culture, I was lucky enough to cross paths with her and come in as direct support on several occasions at various music festivals and clubs across the United States. I have known her inspirational sound for over a decade now. In 80% of my DJ sets between 2009-2018, it’s a guarantee that there were always at least a few of her well crafted bangers mixed in. 

She has always been on the front lines of ground-breaking soundscapes, telling stories with tantalizing melodies and harmonies layered on top of crisp bass lines and drums that knock just right. Her first NFT project is an experience that breaks all boundaries and gives the listener a brand new audio experience.  

Her upcoming NFT release, titled “CRYPTOWAVES PT. 1”, is a 4 track moment in time based on the story of a character known as “The Orphan”.

She states in her recent post on Medium.com: “Crypto is blowing up like crazy—what does that sound like? I wanted to take the excitement, the rush, the revolution, the complete overthrowing of the system, and in spirit of making something unique, I wanted to weave a rich story, a puzzle with clues scattered throughout.  So I set some guidelines for this journey:

1. I would make a four track EP, telling a story both universal and completely encoded with crypto terminologies.
2. Every sound on the EP ( aside from my voice, or few environmental sounds taken in the creation process) would be sourced entirely from wavetables generated using 2021 first-quarter charts for four cryptocurrencies.
3. Every song title would both represent a chapter in this hero’s journey, and correspond to an actual finance term. Lyrics would also have these phrases and words deeply embedded into the storyline.”

This NFT will launch onto the auction block on April 19th via Staxe.Io with a LIVE Album release party in collaboration with the auction ending. This will be streaming as a LIVE VR event as well. 

Staxe is a DeFi/Blockchain-based platform focused on the tokenization, financing and investment of live and online productions. Staxe's goal is to enhance economic opportunities in the live and creative industries via blockchain technology. To do this, it links and safeguards the interests of creatives and investors under an automated and secure platform.

The company recently developed its 'Staxe NFT Launchpad', which combines an NFT drop with a live performance, whether during a concert/show, streaming or VR performance. The Launchpad showcases artists and creatives in a live performance during the final moments of their NFT drop auction, boosting the NFT collection in a highly interactive and unique new way in order to enhance the resulting value captured by an NFT drop with the power of live events.

I spoke with ill-esha about her current creative endeavor on the newest episode (#14) of “The Music Ministry Podcast”. Check it out here.

I’m looking forward to the future of what unfolds within the evolution of this astonishing creative and tech renaissance for all of the amazing artists that will rise from the shift taking place.