Eli Wise returns to music after nearly a decade away with Ghosts and Logic, a three-song indie-pop EP about losing things, making difficult choices and finding your way back to yourself. The Bay Area songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist approaches existential questions with an unexpectedly light touch, turning personal upheaval into stories that feel intimate without becoming heavy. Across just 10 minutes, the EP traces the strange process of accepting that sometimes you cannot logic your way out of change, you simply have to live through it.
“Everyone Goes Through Something Like This, But That Doesn’t Help” opens with soft strumming guitars, thumping drums and gentle melodic piano. Wise’s high, husky voice feels diaristic and engaging as he builds a story around the chaos of losing his written work when a computer crashes. There is something almost funny in the premise, but beneath it sits a familiar frustration: the feeling that months or years of creative work can disappear in an instant, leaving you to start again.
“Out In The Cold” shifts into a catchier groove, with Wise initially singing in a lower, introspective range before smoothly pushing his voice higher. The contrast gives the track a gradual sense of lift, fitting its larger story of conflict and uncertainty. It feels more expansive than the first song, while still keeping Wise’s conversational storytelling at its centre.
Then “I Had To Choose” brings the EP inward. Relaxing strumming guitars support a light, engaging vocal performance as Wise sings about being forced to choose between himself and someone else. The simplicity works in its favour. The song lets the weight emerge through the story.
Taken together, Ghosts and Logic feels like a small but meaningful act of reclamation. Wise writes about transition, uncertainty and the ghosts of an earlier self without allowing them to dictate the present. Sometimes, the EP suggests, the only way forward is to stop trying to make everything make sense and simply pick up the pen again.
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Review by: Naomi Joan