ilex

Ilex is the creative outlet and solo project of Sydney drummer, percussionist and electronic music producer, Holly Conner. Sometimes heavy, percussive, industrial and pumping; sometimes ambient, textural, intricate, bright, and beautiful...The project is an opportunity for ilex to create percussion-meets-electronic music as unique as she is. A versatile, creative, and skilled performer, ilex combines her background as a professional drummer, production skills, and eclectic inspirations to create a musical world all her own.

"Dynamic, powerful...an impressive display of virtuosic drumming....Highly theatrical, the sound and vision were highly impressive" - Eric Myers, Loudmouth Magazine 2022.

The two iterations of ilex - dark and light - draw broadly from electro, Japanese sci-fi soundtracks, drone, new wave, and DIY/experimental musics; whilst softer tracks reference ambient, art music, and traditional meditative musics.

ilex has performed solo/live drum club sets supporting DJs such as Tzusing (LIES), industrial/punk/noise group Behind You and producers 700 Feel; as well as creating ambient iterations for the Sydney Biennale, Surfacing Series (supporting Megan Alice Clune) and Insight at Shades (supported by Bluetung). Ilex has performed at countless local Sydney electronic music/club nights, as well as the Sydney Opera House Studio as a Freedman Fellowship Finalist.

In 2023, ilex was chosen as FBI Radio's Independent Artist of the Week, following the release of her single 'What is Soft is also Strong'.

ilex's debut EP, Visions of Elsewhere, was released in 2021. The EP is ambient and introspective; exploring the softer, less traditional, and textural sides of percussion. Tracks feature samples of gongs, traditional drums, temple blocks, found objects; all warped with effects and heightened with sparkly, celestial synths. In late 2022 she released her follow-up single 'What is Soft is Also Strong' which was on rotation at FBI radio Sydney, received airplay across the country, as well as on international digital radio shows such as Jimmy Tamborello's Dying Songs (LA), Flippin Worldwide (Amsterdam), and Fade (Athens). Her latest track "Kodamas" was released on the New Weird Australia ambient compilation "Fragile States", a collection of the best in new Australian ambient music.