Ellise

Ellise’s warped, theatrical pop relies on a lithe voice and a heavy dose of dark whimsy. Among a series of short-form releases in the late 2010s, she went viral with “911” from her 2018 EP Can You Keep a Secret? Her full-length debut, Chaotic, followed in 2021.
Born and raised in the California Bay Area, Ellise Mariana Gitas was inspired to become a singer after performing a Kelly Clarkson song at a school event in the fourth grade. She auditioned for The X Factor as a young teen in 2013 and had relocated to Los Angeles by the time she competed on iHeartRadio Rising Star in 2016. That year, she also released her first song, the earnest “Breakdown,” while appearing in the web documentary series Uncharted. At the time she was going by her full name.
As Ellise, she made her debut with a song called “Dominoes” in 2016. After parting ways with her first label, she self-released the more distinctively stylized “Love Made Me Do It” in early 2018. The EP Can You Keep a Secret? followed on Hell Bent Heaven Sent later that year. It included the song “911,” which trended on social media, drawing millions of streams. She released another EP, Under My Bed, in 2019 before including “911” on her debut album, Chaotic. It arrived on Hell Bent Heaven Sent/Empire in May 2021. Ellise made her live debut a month later with a staged online performance of the title track. ~ Marcy Donelson