Foggy Notions presents
ELF POWER
+ The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock
Upstairs @ Whelan’s, Sunday August 10
Tickets from WAV, tickets.ie, Road, City Discs, Ticketmaster
“In a Cave evokes the lysergic escapism of E6's glory days.” – Pitchfork Media
“The production is sublime, every beat and note fully realised in glorious colour.” – Drowned in Sound
Elephant 6 alums and Athens, Ga., natives, Elf Power mesh a slew of
strings with psych guitar and the homemade, mellotron-like tape organ
on their latest LP, In a Cave, which the Village Voice termed “an
affirmation of the bells-and-whistles-within-worlds recordings of yore”
on which Elf Power and its E6 compatriots (Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples
in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control) made their bones.
Elf Power formed in 1994 and have spent the last fourteen years
releasing nine albums, two EPs, a handful of singles, and touring
America, Europe, and Japan.
The group established its bona fides on albums like 1997's When the Red
King Comes and 1999's A Dream in Sound - records that laid the astral
foundations of songwriter Andrew Rieger's singular psychedelic
universe. Save an intriguing diversion to T. Rex-style power-boogie on
2004's Walking With the Beggar Boys, Rieger hasn't changed Elf Power's
game plan much since then, or needed to. In a Cave shows Krieger
remains as restless as ever, utilizing Elf Power hallmarks like oddball
instrumentation and shoestring recording techniques to put his warped
signature on harmonically lush pop and inner/outer-space drone alike.
Members of Elf Power also own and operate Orange Twin Records, an
independent record label focused squarely on the local community;
besides earlier Elf Power albums, Orange Twin has also released records
by Neutral Milk Hotel, The Gerbils, Madeline and many other stalwarts
of the vibrant Athens scene.
A percentage of proceeds generated by the label helps fund The Orange
Twin Conservation Community, which owns 155 acres of land on the
outskirts of Athens and has initiated the development of a highly
progressive, self-sustainable and ecologically-minded cluster village
and nature preserve. This sort of thoughtful, perpetual motion through
the years has sharpened the band’s instincts powerfully and
all-inclusively.
Dark Developments, a new collaborative LP Elf Power recently worked up
with their collab-happy fellow Athenian Vic Chesnutt will be released
in October on Orange Twin.
www.elfpower.com
www.myspace.com/elfpower
The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock
The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock is music from Dublin. Named after a
poem about a haunted canal lock, the Spook plucks banjos and twangs
guitars, he yelps and he drones and he sings songs about doomed
revolutionaries, brave partisan, corrupt politicians and constant
struggle.
Live the Spook plays solo with guitar, banjo and effects or swells to a full band with bass, guitars, drums.
www.myspace.com/thespookofthethirteenthlock
