Releasing her first single, Losing You Slow, in March this year, with the second, Peace Comes With It, following in April, dream pop singer-songwriter Beth Elsden already had a debut EP ready to roll out. That degree of preparation is all-but explained in the title of her July 2026 released EP, ‘The Waiting Room’.

Pairing soulful soft pop textures and intimate, diary-like storytelling, Beth’s introduction as an already accomplished artist comes after five years of development, her sound shaped by the patience and longing it took to get this far, and collaborator / producer Abby Wolfe.

She grew up performing in local productions, writing songs and busking, but put that aside to study at Otago University, where she majored in psychology and theatre studies, with music as a minor.

It was at uni that she met Wolfe who encouraged her to start recording. The five years spent in developing her music included hours and hours of trying different things together in search of her ‘sound’, but mostly it was a matter of logistics, including Beth’s subsequent move to Auckland.

“It just took a while to get done as Abby and I were sort of working on it whenever we had downtime, and I was very new to the whole process. I also think I had a lot of work to do on my confidence and self-esteem before I was ready to release music, so that was part of it too.”

Along with Covid and well-meaning advice about being ‘realistic’ with her future, she admits that self-doubt stemmed in part from not having the thick skin needed to deal with rejection.

“I thought I had to be some hyperbole of talent from the get go, to justify pursuing it – rather than music and songwriting being a craft that you can develop over time. Meeting Abby changed the trajectory of my life, I don’t know if I would have found a pathway into releasing music without her encouragement and guidance.”

Among the EP’s five tracks Beth played piano and synths, also recording some of the bass and guitar parts. She describes her producer as an incredible singer and guitar player, saying Wolfe added a lot of cool guitar parts and vocal adlib/harmony suggestions.

“She is also a main contributor to that dreamy texture in my music. We both love a lot of reverb and we would always come back to the Heavenly Tweed guitar plugin on Logic, across all of the songs!

“I basically brought in each song as it was written on an acoustic guitar, and then together we would just build on it with harmonies and synths, and layers of production that I think are so integral to my sound.”

Her elegant vocals are the focus, with rich harmonies, layers and dramatic melodies. Beth says she has grown to be proud of the tone and versatility of her voice more as she’s gotten older. ‘The 20s are the waiting room,’ she sings to open the EP, setting the scene with title track Waiting Room. 

“Singing so much musical theatre growing up, and working as a vocal coach, has helped me understand how to shape-shift my voice for different genres and styles. I really like being able to sing a super operatic musical theatre song, and then switch gears into a more quiet folky singer-songwriter vibe with ease.”