Elf Power has had a lot of help over the years with a variety of wonderful musicians playing from album to album. The current lineup is:
Andrew Rieger- vox and guitar
Jimmy Hughes- guitar, keys
Derek Almstead- bass
Eric Harris - drums
Laura Carter- keys, clarinet, accordian
Heather McIntosh- cello, keys
John Fernandes - violin
Sounds Like
Elf Power and Vic Chesnutt will be playing at Carnegie Hall in NYC on March 11th 2009 as a part of an REM Tribute: www.remtribute.com
for mailorder of our music you'd want to check Orange Twin for our new album collaborating with Vic Chesnutt or Rykodisc for our latest 2 Elf Power records and Orange Twin for our previous records.
Elf Power formed in 1994 and have spent the last 14 years releasing nine albums, two eps, a handful of singles, and touring America, Europe,and Japan.
Elf Power’s ninth album blasts them past the familiar
territories of beautiful records past – landing them
on exciting new terrain. Granted, the Elves’ sound is
still founded on the bedrock attributes that make them
memorable: leader Andrew Rieger’s otherworldly lyrical
stances and his easy way with the rare and amazing
melody, their instrumentally-eclectic reappraisal of
classic rock, and a propulsive rhythm section that’s
tight as ever. In A Cave, though, finds them
filtering their powerful live approach through a
varied, experimental series of recording processes and
approaches; the new album plays like a spirited,
exploratory series of treatments on the tried-and-true
Elf Power sound.
Derek Almstead’s production balances the elements
perfectly: lean and muscular with a layer of warmth
overtop, he opens ample windows for the band to expand
and explore all available spaces.
Drummer/multi-instrumentalist Eric Harris returns to
the fold for this record, and his rhythmic interaction
with bassist Almstead provides the supportive spine
for each tune; notice how the two bury a chugging
Krautrock underpinning in the sing-song pop of
“Paralyzed” and provide the swagger inherent to the
marching fuzz-boogie of “Spiral Stairs”. Harris’
homemade “tape-organ” -- a Thriftstore Mellotron, of
sorts -- assumes a starring role on several of these
songs, enveloping the driving jams and
harmonically-dense balladry in a loopy, warbly aura.
Truly, this is one of the most psychedelic Elf Power
records in years; droned-out, interstitial songs like
“Window to Mars” and the Eno-esque “Heads of Dust,
Hearts of Lust” lend a sense of wholeness to this
diverse album, and glue the longer tracks together
perfectly.
Elf Power has been busy this year, touring steadily,
and recording an album with folk rock legend Vic
Chesnutt that will be released this coming Fall, and
the resultant instrumental cohesion shows; the
interplay between Rieger’s twelve-string and Jimmy
Hughes’ overdriven lead guitar is as subtle and
important as ever. Present, too, are those strange
sonic touches that have long made the band
distinctive: that edifying layer of melody that comes
courtesy of Heather Macintosh’s virtuoso cello-playing
and Laura Carter’s accordion and Moog Synthesizer.
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
beautiful 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, and the results are joyously
evident here; with In A Cave, Elf Power finds a
perfect synthesis of their solid, instinctual ensemble
playing and open-hearted experimentation, and the
result is one of the best, most assured records to
come soaring out of Athens in a long, long time.
You can right a dozen poems or write a dozen songs Or two hundred and twenty three and still be fucking wrong. You can beg and borrow with games of sorrow For the lost of all your yesterdays and the lost of all tomorrows. But still - The elf - He doesn’t see. I wonder sometimes with all my stupid, fucking rhymes Will he stay alive to see tomorrow or end his precious time to be?
The words are now fucking scattered everywhere With the thinning of his flowing, crimson blood. The elf is nowhere to be found. - Not anywhere With his selfish care to be enriched, Enhanced, ‘n twitched on a daily, morbid basis Seeking his feed of famine in the dust of a morning flood. . . . . . . .There is no magik there.
The magik of the fairy words still touch the elves who want to see But with wasted page and silent rage The hardened ink will never reach the elf. He’s too caught up within himself. The magik fairy can’t help the elf to be.
With pain and hate, with no guardian at the gate, No watcher to help him see his fate, The perfect of the elf will only mock and chew and spit and spew All the magik of the words he ate. The magik of the fairy simply won’t get through And if it does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Too fucking late. . . . But true!
I finally see what is left of him Or what he shows to me in a café on a mission hill. He’s fine. - He’s got his shit together, a shit so fucking full of mental rot. He knows the answers still. - He still believes he won’t get caught With an absence of his mind and soul and will.
He knows “the everything and the all.” Yes. . . . . . . . He has lost his fucking mind Or it walked away as if to say, “I’m so fucking, disgusted with it all” To be covered up with twisted smirks and shallow, peukey grins With the insane of the demons’ mind control As he wallows in the dragons’ tormenting, manik spins With one single solitary purpose . . . . . . . .to fucking kill him in the end.
