Elf Power

Elf Power – When the Red King Comes (2024 Remaster) (1997/2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 40:07 minutes | 746 MB | Genre: Indie Rock, Neo-psychedelia
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orange Twin

Elf Power’s legendary 1997 album remixed, remastered and reissued on limited edition red vinyl.

As the Elephant 6 catalog continues to expand, it becomes increasingly obvious that many of the label’s bands are concerned not merely with creating fresh and exciting music but rather entire mythologies, crafting obscure concept records exploring the intricacies of strange pocket universes. Existing in the musical gray area between Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel – both of whose members make cameos here – Elf Power’s superb When the Red King Comes is a heady journey to a psychedelic utopia, a travelogue with such destinations as “The Secret Ocean,” “The Separating Fault,” and “The Silver Lake.” As imagined primarily by singer/songwriter Andrew Rieger, the album is a odyssey “Into the Everlasting Time,” and true to its word, it seems to exist outside of any obvious era – the fuzzy, lo-fi production is an Elephant 6 hallmark, but the unique instrumentation (electric horns, pump organs, even Nepalese percussion) and cryptic, stream-of-consciousness wordplay suggest something altogether different; perhaps most telling is When the Red King Comes’ cover, a crazed map suggesting something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien fever dream.

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Elf Power – Artificial Countrysides (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 39:05 minutes | 451 MB | Genre: Indie Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Yep Roc Records

Artificial Countrysides is Athens, Georgia-based Elf Power’s 14th album and first for Yep Roc Records. The band expand their sound on this record to glorious effect, adding marimba, harpsichord, synth bass, distorted drum machine loops, and mellotron to their time tested mix of fuzz guitars, moog keyboards, pummeling drums, and layered acoustic guitars, achieving a satisfying and unique synthesis of traditional and futuristic sounds. Lyrically the album mirrors this approach by discussing the difficulties and advantages of dealing with modern life’s digital and artificial landscape, balanced with the natural world. Elf Power formed in Athens, GA in 1994 and have released 14 albums, two EPs, and a handful of singles, while touring North America, Europe, and Japan many times playing alongside acts like R.E.M., Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr., Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided by Voices, Arcade Fire and many more. Albums such as 1998’s Dave Fridmann-produced A Dream In Sound and 2008’s collaboration with the late folk rock icon Vic Chesnutt, Dark Developments, have cemented the bands’ reputation as the finest purveyors of modern melodic psychedelic folk rock around. The band became known as a member of the much heralded Elephant 6 Collective, which includes their friends and collaborators Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, and many more.

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