Beat chats to Josh Ellis, leader of the Perth-based project Coco Elise, about new single Avoid Your Stare.
Perth alt-folk act Coco Elise has been on a hot streak over the last 12 months.
The solo project of songwriter and producer Josh Ellis has played support slots with Maribou State, Sycco and The Buoys, signed with booking agency Niche Productions, and enjoyed plenty of triple j airplay.
The track Colour the Stencil, from Coco Elise’s latest EP, Lilly’s Gallery, was named Song of the Year at the 2026 WAM Awards.
Coco Elise – Avoid Your Stare
- What: new single Avoid Your Stare
- When: Thursday 11 June
- Where: listen here
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Coco Elise will release the new single, Avoid Your Stare, this Thursday 11 June. It’s taken from the same batch of songs as previous single, Porcelain Tiles, and both tracks are part of a larger body of work Coco Elise is building towards for release later this year.
“This body of work definitely encapsulates this period of time for me; the last six to 12 months,” Ellis says, chatting to Beat from his home in Perth. “All the songs were written in a condensed period and all the songs have similar themes.”
The depth of detail in Ellis’ lyrics distinguishes the new material from the songs on Lilly’s Gallery. The new songs are “a lot sadder,” he says.
“The lyrics are a little bit more direct from me without trying to make them relatable experiences. They’re just sort of my experiences, which is cool.”
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Avoid Your Stare is about parting ways with someone after a long and intimate relationship, and grappling with the sunk cost fallacy.
“I think the main theme in the song is that you put so much time into something, and now you’ve realised maybe it’s not something that you can put any more time into,” Ellis says. “It’s a feeling of sadness, but it’s just, like, such a hole and a shitty place to be.”
Ellis started Coco Ellis five years ago. The project has gone through several iterations, including periods where it was officially a band or duo. Ellis still collaborates with other musicians on stage and in the studio, but Coco Elise is now firmly a solo project. The increased candour is his lyrics is representative of this shift.
“I had full autonomy in what I wanted to write,” Ellis says of the upcoming record. “And the music was made off of what I was listening to and a lot of the writers and songwriting that I was listening to late last year.”
He names Adrianne Lenker, Big Thief and Kevin Morby as major influences on the new Coco Elise material. “I guess that folk vibe came into the songwriting,” Ellis says. “Just cool lyrics that you wouldn’t expect. That’s the goal, to just speak things from my experience.”
Despite the turn towards more vulnerable lyricism, the new Coco Elise material remains musically ornate. This contrast, between the lovely arrangements and Ellis’ raw lyrics, was informed by another of his favourite contemporary musicians, Cameron Winter.
“It’s the most beautiful music and it’s so organic and you feel like you’re in the studio the whole time on the Heavy Metal album, and then the lyrics are soul destroying,” he says. “So, maybe subconsciously I have done that too, because that’s definitely one of my top listened to records in the last year.”
While nothing has been officially announced yet, the project will most likely be playing in a city near you later this year, with Ellis set to take Coco Elise over east.
Either way, Ellis hopes to be able to make Coco Elise his day job in the future.
“The whole goal is just to be able to do it full time. That in itself is just so hard nowadays, so I don’t want to get too carried away with that, but I’ve always wanted to do it.
“I think before, when things weren’t happening, I would probably take the piss out of it just because, you know, with tall poppy in Australia and stuff like that. But it’s nice to be able to go, ‘Yeah, this could be something,’ and take it seriously.”
Follow Coco Elise here.
This article was made in partnership with Coco Elise.
