You don´t have to look too far for artistic evidence in Eliot Paulina Sumner origins: the daughter of icon Sting and actress and producer Trudie Styler follows her own path and is already appearing on the lists of the most sought-after artists in Ibiza. 

Just as precocious as we expected her to be, she was composing songs at just 15 and presenting them live in 2010 with the project electropop I Blame Coco, a quintet of indie-pop and electro and managed to produce a good handful of songs. Then six years later with Information, a record where she performed solo under the same musical parameters. 

At the same time as her pop artist career was evolving, Sumner gained a lot of good experience as a DJ in clubs and at festivals all over the world: she´s been in Glastonbury, Leeds/Reading, Latitude, Secret Garden Party, Benicassim, Wireless, Isle of White, Lovebox y Jalouse Rocks, among others. She has experimented with electronic music production, having been published on Life and Death and Afterlife Recordings; she has rightfully made a name for herself. She is already catching the attention of revellers all over Ibiza with her creations and the interesting atmosphere she presents with each performance. How will her career develop on the island?

She started 2019 strong: launching her debut album, under the moniker Vaal– her alias means “extremely pale” in Dutch – is called Nosferatu and it is a dark, visual, unsettling project with creations like ¨Blue Eyes¨. This piece was converted into an audiovisual cut by filmmaker Sergei Rostropovich. 

“I think the record is dark and threatening“, explains the artist, „but it mixes light and darkness equally“. The project is inspired by the electronic music she grew up with: Massive Attack, The Prodigy, Aphex Twin, Portishead, and Kraftwerk, it was more than the influence of a few artists, it was the influence of an entire era that marked styles and sounds. And it would fit, according to her, in some Stanley Kubrick movie. “I imagine part of this music as an alternative soundtrack to ‘Barry Lyndon’, for example”, says Sumner.

Uncomfortable when it comes to categories, Sumner won´t allow herself to be categorized into a genre: a few years ago she stated that she didn´t identify herself with any and that she didn´t believe in labels. 

It was very interesting to see her on June 27th at the Afterlife Opening Party, in Hï Ibiza. Vaal hasn´t stopped surprising us since then, her mystery is taking her on the right path towards the consecrated list of artists in Ibiza who each season give the most demanding clubbers from all over the world a show to remember. We´ll be keeping an eye on this new musical talent!