WL//WH Premiere: MERE OF LIGHT’s Handmade Fairy Tale “Heat of Ritual: Portals”

WL//WH Premiere MERE OF LIGHT

photo by Leo Morningstar

Mere of Light is the solo Electronic Folk project of Elise McArdle, an electronic producer, songwriter, vocalist, and electro-acoustic harpist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her mystical music stems from multiple branches, fusing a form of melodic folk drift and lean hardware push, with an iridescent glow and sharp poetic narrative.

WL//WH is pleased to premiere “Heat of Ritual: Portals”, the magical DIY puppet video, handmade by Mere of Light herself, with Eddie Chapman co-filming, to showcase excerpts of the tracks, “Secret Meadow” and “Blue Moon Ice Cream”, from the new album ‘Heat of Ritual’, due out today, April 24th, 2026, via the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based independent label Lighten Up Sounds.

“Heat of Ritual” offers six tracks of real-time, transformative electronics. Working alone on the floor with acoustic folk harp, analog synthesizer, drum machine, and voice, McArdle processes and arranges each instrument through a refined process of multitrack sampling. The result is a tapestry of patterns, pulse, and melody, each in circular symmetry. Through dreamlike blur, a tension stirs. Witness a slow uncoiling, the new ache of change.

The music is propulsive and hardware-driven, a blend of folk harp, analog synths, voice, and electronics. Modulating between ethereal ambient and structured pop modalities, the work is rooted in themes of magic, fantasy, and feminism.

Photo by Leo Morningstar

Suspended in an iridescent liminal state between heaven and earth, “Secret Meadow” crafts softly clinking melodies to spin, like a music box, alongside gentle humming bass pulses and diaphanous pads, atop which hand-plucked, sparkling harp strings and cool blowing mists cradle vibrant, airy female vocals, changing from calm introspection to surprised angst.

The second excerpt, “Blue Moon Ice Cream,” unravels a chilly crystalline interlude of intricately formulated, deeply resonant bell-like tones that sleet and float over a floor of low, trembling tones before whimsical flute spirals and dry, frigid airs join the mix to conjure feelings of joy, transformation, and playfulness.

Our story follows Sylvie, who stumbles through a mystical portal into landscapes of witches, planets, and dancing night creatures. Following themes of imagination, fear, and the magical subconscious, the work explores the quiet corners of distant fairytale dreams.

The companion DIY video “Heat of Ritual: Portals”, co-filmed by Eddie Chapman, is a stunningly imaginative puppet film that includes marionettes and shoebox sets, handmade with warm sincerity by Mere of Light herself.

The fairy tale follows a medieval character through an enchanted forest where a trip down a well begets an epic journey. Sylvie meets friends along the way who help and give comfort to her in times of challenge, loss, and joy. Elise McArdle’s remarkable attention to detail, curiosity-inducing locations, and symbolic use of color, light, and shadow bring forth a thought-provoking catharsis in sync with the soundtrack.

Mere of Light‘s debut album, “Heat of Ritual”, is out today, April 24th, 2026, on Limited Cassette / Art Portfolio+ Cassette & Digital, via the independent label Lighten Up Sounds.

Keep up with Mere of Light and Lighten Up Sounds: