Can you trust the face the mirror shows you?
Black jacks, red queens, enchanted creatures, and a forest that seems infinite. The language of fairy tales is never far from ELDR’s imagination, and in her latest work “Defender” that sensibility is channelled into a gothic reinterpretation of Alice in Wonderland. But this is not just an aesthetic borrowed for effect. For Marina Elderton, the award-winning composer behind the project, Wonderland becomes a mirror for the inner self, a place where hidden fears and suppressed truths come alive in order to be confronted. The accompanying video follows a cloaked rider drawn into the forest to face the spectral figure of the Mirror Man, a meeting that ultimately demands radical self-acceptance. In an age where masks and curated identities dominate both culture and technology, the symbolism could not feel more contemporary.
What makes ELDR stand out is the way she weaves her background in film composition into her music, so that every track feels less like a song and more like a scene. Her career has long been defined by narrative: composing for award-winning documentaries, creating VR experiences, and now producing music videos that carry the weight of short films. With “Defender”, she pushes further into this hybrid territory where sound and image become indistinguishable. The haunting vocals and sparse rhythms are not designed to dominate charts but to immerse, to create a sensorial world that listeners step into. It is an approach that challenges the casual consumption of music online, inviting audiences instead to watch, listen, and imagine as if entering a cinema.
The Alice in Wonderland metaphor is particularly telling in how it speaks to our time. Carroll’s story has always been about falling into strangeness and finding meaning within it, a tale of the self stretched and distorted by an unfamiliar world. For a generation negotiating fractured identities, algorithmic feeds, and the endless play of masks, the Chevalier’s journey through ELDR’s forest feels less like fantasy and more like allegory. The Mirror Man is not a villain but a reminder of the truths we avoid. Removing the mask becomes the act of confronting the parts of ourselves we would rather not admit. It is no surprise that artists are turning to myth and folklore to frame modern dilemmas. By cloaking contemporary struggles in timeless imagery, they give audiences both distance and recognition, a way to process anxieties without the weight of literalism.
Perhaps the most striking thing about ELDR’s work is how it reflects a wider shift in music culture. For decades, music videos have been promotional tools, often formulaic extensions of a song. Increasingly, artists like ELDR are treating them as cinematic works in their own right, narratives that can stand independently while deepening the music’s resonance. This trend suggests a hunger for immersion in an attention economy that constantly fragments our focus. “Defender” is not built for scrolling but for pausing, for stepping into a story that is both personal and universal. In that sense, ELDR is less concerned with pop impact than with creating cultural spaces where sound, film, and myth converge. Her Wonderland is not an escape but a confrontation, and in that tension lies her most powerful statement: that music can still be a place where we go to face ourselves.