Vera Ellen Shares New Single + Video 'Thaw'

Aotearoa Music Award and Taite Prize-winning artist Vera Ellen releases her new single ‘Thaw’, taken from her upcoming album Heaven Knows What Time, out May 1st via Flying Nun Records.

The single follows the recently released joyous anthem ‘Gayfever’ and the sophisti-pop Hemi Hemingway duet ‘When It’s Over,’ also taken from Heaven Knows What Time.

Says Vera Ellen of the new track:

“The inspiration for Thaw came when I hit writer’s block during a songwriting residency and decided a change was needed. I went to a local barber and, although he was about to close, he cut my hair and blasted Alice Cooper. We talked a lot about guitars and rock and on the walk home I got myself some whiskey. All I wanted was to write a “sick riff” - I sat down and out came Thaw.”

The track marked a shift in the writing process, shedding expectation in favour of instinct and feeling. ‘Thaw’ explores infatuation from a place of self-assurance, and features vocals from bandmate Ben Lemi.

The video for ‘Thaw’ is another special collaboration with Daniel Fletcher - sitting somewhere between a music video and a short film. It was shaped through many conversations about identity, love, dating, and generational patterns. Surreal and considered, it’s the kind of piece you can watch multiple times and discover something new with each viewing. Shot in Auckland with the help of many hands, the video was made with support from NZ On Air Music.

Three years on from her last full-length project Ideal Home Noise; which was awarded the prestigious Taite Music Prize for 2023, Vera Ellen has found herself in a whirlwind of unconventionality - learning to embrace the chaos that comes with being a self-sustained artist in today’s constantly driving culture, and finding meaning and joy in community - all themes that inform her new body of work.

“Heaven Knows What Time”, the words came to Vera Ellen as she lay on the top bunk of a house truck in Buenos Aires. Nearly two years after writing the record, almost a year after finishing the mix, and following multiple name changes, the album title arrived with clarity and force. It felt less like a decision and more like a moment of arrival - a reminder that creativity cannot be demanded. It can be nurtured, given the right conditions, but ultimately it does not adhere to industry timelines. Like a baby, it arrives when it is ready. Receiving the album’s name became a lesson in that truth.

Mixed and produced by Vera's long-time collaborator Ben Lemi, Heaven Knows What Time is both a question and an answer - an expression of frustration and a surrender to what was never within her control.

Vera wrote the album during a two-week songwriting residency in Greytown, awarded through the NZ Pacific Studio Artist Residency Programme. The residency concluded with a performance at Studio 73 for fellow residents and members of the local community who had hosted her.

The experience provided two essential elements:

The first was space and solitude. At the time, Vera was immersed in a self-sustained cycle of work, touring, and performance. Writing had become difficult to access. In Greytown, largely alone in the cottage, she found room to slow down, taking long walks, observing the landscape, and reconnecting with her thoughts, her body, and the natural world. This period allowed her to reflect, to make sense of fragments, and to write with renewed presence.

The second was accountability. With a final performance marking the end of the residency, Vera felt a responsibility to honour the opportunity by creating something tangible. It also served as a commitment to herself, a reaffirmation of her identity as a songwriter, and a test of what could emerge when time and intention were aligned. In her residency application, she wrote: “After the heaviness of Ideal Home Noise, I feel it is pressing that I now create an uplifting record that has a guiding message of hope, but from a matured perspective.”

In some ways, that intention is reflected in the finished album. Heaven Knows What Time is lighter in tone, carrying themes of love, joy, and a growing sense of self-assurance. Yet it resists any obligation to resolve or repair everything. Rather than responding to expectation or guilt, the writing moves toward introspection - embracing contradiction, humour, moodiness, and heartbreak, and positioning Vera less as a participant and more as an observer of her inner and outer worlds.

ABOUT VERA ELLEN: Vera Ellen was born and raised in Naenae in Te Whanganui-A-Tara/Wellington. She spent her younger years playing and writing music, her first song written at age 8. Whilst living in Aotearoa, she played in bands such as grunge 4-piece Maple Syrup and Sweater. Vera relocated to Los Angeles, where she started the band Girl Friday, whose music debuted on indie giant Sub Pop’s sub-label, Hardly Art. In early 2020, Vera moved back to Aotearoa during the pandemic, leading to her finishing her solo album, It’s Your Birthday — released on Flying Nun Records in October 2021. This album saw Vera named ‘Best Alternative Artist’ at the 2022 Aotearoa Music Awards.

The 2023 follow-up album, Ideal Home Noise was a record unearthed from much introspection and aN attempt to find some comedy and lightness in an otherwise dark period for Vera Ellen. With two "voices” battling throughout the album, the instrumentation is sometimes light — featuring synths and electronic drums — and sometimes heavy — with ballad-like piano and raw vocals. Vera’s momentum was unstoppable with her last 13 track album reaching all corners of the world.

Vera has had multiple tracks featured in the NZ Official Alt Charts, with her single ‘Carpenter’ spending 4 weeks in the charts, peaking at #1 and 2022’s standalone single ‘Homewrecker’, spending 14 weeks in the charts, peaking at #8. Upon release, 2023’s Ideal Home Noise reached #7 on the Official NZ Top 20 Album Charts.

Internationally, Vera’s music has reached as far as Australia, France, USA and the UK, with a write-up in France’s national newspaper Le Monde, a feature in Loud & Quiet Magazine (UK), Ideal Home Noise was also named #3 in Rolling Stone’s “Top NZ albums of 2023”. In the USA, Vera’s 2023 album charted #55 on the NACC Radio 200 Chart, and scored Top 30 Support from nearly 30 stations & picked support from 26 other stations.

As well as many shows around her home country of New Zealand, including the 2025 Laneway Festival, Vera has also toured with her band around the world; a 14-date exploratory tour of China, a sold out run of shows in Australia in support of Crowded House, and visits to New Colossus Festival and SXSW (both Austin and Sydney editions)

HEAVEN KNOWS WHAT TIME Tracklisting
01. spit @ the sky
02. big shot jr
03. how we say goodnight
04. gayfever
05. walking in vegas
06. hollow
07. thaw
08. when it's over (ft. Hemi Hemingway)
09. hunger is just memory
10. getting told off by mum

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