Steppin on Water

In assembling Steppin' On Water, Elisa drew largely from Ivy (a collection of folk-tinged songs released in Italy in November 2010). The 11-track album also includes two songs plucked from the soundtrack of Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You (a new film helmed by Italian director from Roberto Faenza and starring Marcia Gay Harden, Ellen Burstyn, Lucy Liu, Peter Gallagher, and Aubrey Plaza). Featuring music by famed Italian composer Andrea Guerra and lyrics by Michele Von Büren, "Love Is Requited" and "Apologize" kick off Steppin' On Water and set the tone for the rest of the beautifully bittersweet record. "Even though I didn't write the songs for the movie, they were very much in the same vein as the songs I was working on at the time, which was a magical coincidence," says Elisa. "It was like pulling on a dress that was made just for me." \rIndeed, the pairing of "Love Is Requited" (a dreamy, acoustic-guitar-kissed meditation on renewing one's faith in love) and "Apologize" (a jaunty, jazzy number with a 1930s feel) neatly embodies Steppin' On Water's melting together of wistful and whimsical. "When I was putting this record together, I chose the songs that were more emotional and very personal," says Elisa. "At the same time, the album has a sort of purity and lightness of mood." The birth of her first child (Emma Cecile) in 2009 was essential to helping Elisa infuse her songs with a soulful simplicity, she points out. "There's a certain peace that comes from being in the presence of a young soul, a person for whom everything is so mysterious and new," says Elisa, whose husband Andrea Rigonat serves as guitarist, drummer, and arranger for several tracks on Steppin' On Water. "There's also some mysticism to the whole experience of being a mother, and I think that went into the record as well."