‘It is less about the light than the memory of it’: Elderbrook closed a year of duets with a song about his younger self

Elderbrook has released ‘Staring at the Sun’ together with Rules — a 3 minute 33 second track that came out on 16 July 2026 on Counter Records.

The date and the credits are recorded in the Apple Music catalogue.

The musician explained the song with unexpected precision: for him it is less about the light and more about the memory of it — about the feeling of being young, when the world seemed endless and inspiration lived in the smallest moments. As we grow older, he says, we spend so much time becoming someone new that we forget to revisit who we once were; and it is there that the parts of us we have been searching for all along still live.

The video was made by Wyatt Stromer, who served as both director and director of photography. The producer was Alex Currie, the executive producer Sasha Celico. Ella Melideo choreographed it and dances in it; the leading female role is played by the actress Sharon Weinstein.

For Elderbrook, 2026 is the year in which he has barely appeared on his own. On 16 January came ‘Falling’ with the South African Shimza, on 20 February ‘Lost In The Woods’ with the duo Adriatique, on 28 May ‘Is It Over Now?’, and in July ‘Staring at the Sun’ with Rules.

That is the whole point of his career. Alexander Kotz writes, produces and sings himself, but his loudest records carry two signatures — the Elderbrook voice mostly reaches rotation not under his own name but inside other people’s releases.

The best-known example is ‘Cola’ with the duo CamelPhat: a 2017 record on Defected Records that brought a Grammy nomination and set the sound of an entire club decade.

That is why ‘Cola’ is still his calling card even though the sleeve carries more than one name: the voice gets recognised before anyone reads whose it is.