A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Alan Lomax - Asha Bhonsle - The Beatles - Beck - Beta Band - The Books - The Carter Family - Ed McCurdy - Electrelane - Elliot Smith - Explosions In The Sky - The Flaming Lips - Francoise Hardy - Huun Huur Tu - The Innocence Mission - Jefferson Airplane - Jeffrey Lewis - Jim O 'Rourke - Joanna Newsom - Jon Brion - Kraftwerk - Leadbelly - Life Without Buildings - Lucky Elephant - The Microphones - Mississippi John Hurt - Nick Drake - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Os Mutantes - Pengiun Cafe Orchestra - Ravi Shankar - Stereolab - Tiny Tim - Tom Waits
Sounds Like
A Review of His Son Elroy’s E.P's (Part III & IV)
by Jeremy [Music Spork] December 2003
His Son Elroy sound like 'Modest Mouse' vocal inflections + 'Belle and Sebastian' arrangements + 'The Gashlycrumb Tinie's + Led Zeppelin’s “Over the Hill and Far Away”
When examined under fluorescent lights, 4x4 is simple, dreamy, and mischievously playful chamber pop. But when the harsh lights dim, His Son Elroy holds its séance. The songs display the deceptive quality of naughty children: sugar ‘n spice until the nanny leaves the room. Indeed, the band delivers the music as though they were children huddled in the attic or behind the bleachers, singing songs Headmaster has forbidden. The vocals reinforce this image: high, wispsy voices that slip off-key while bouncing up and down an impressive range. (The lead singer has a sleepily hypnotic delivery that makes me imagine Isaac Brock on a serious Dilaudid and Xanax cocktail.)
However, all this is not meant to compare the album to the work of children; 4x4 is in no way amateurish. It's not the same flavor as a Takako Minekawa ‘schoolgirl-with-a-Casio’ album. Pain and frustration rest at the center of many of the songs. But this isn’t
Morrissey moping in the rain on a Saturday night, either. This is Alice cringing while the Queen of Hearts screams, “Off with her head!” The phrase “torn limb from limb” crops up, as do tales of chefs snipping bits of young flesh for use in their concoctions. But the horror is recited in such a deliciously deadpan way, the songs become less threatening and more delightfully morbid, like an Edward Gorey etching.
THE TURTLE SOUP BOX SET INCLUDES THE ALBUM '4X4' BY HIS SON ELROY
The album’s technically sophisticated, as well. The simple beats and melodies dovetail into difficult arrangements, typically injected with tantalizing bits of space-travel electronic effects, cavorting trumpet lines, and birds chirping in sunny meadows. The guitars are similarly enchanted: acoustic and natural, not exactly sloppy, just organic. Throughout the album, beginnings are found at ends, endings begin and strange but appropriate changes materialize regularly.
I found listening to these two pieces as haunting as finding old toys from childhood, remembering imaginary lives created in fantastic places, long since driven away by the rigors of reality. I eagerly await the publication of the completed grimoire from His Son Elroy. For the moment, try contacting mail@borbonesa.co.uk for more information. That is, if the spirit moves you.
And so Elroy embarked on the 1ST, of what soon became 4, extended play compact discs. At times Elroy have been criticised as both inaccessible and massively retro (100-150 years or so; almost Goliardic by some accounts). But despite regular citations from the dust-covered, bottle green vaults of the Victorian traditionalists and a tendency to weave numerical conundrums into poetical abstractions; this has never been their intention. Elroy’s treatment of ‘time’ throughout 4x4 owes more to the recent proximity of the Borbonaise intelligentsia than to any need to look (and feel) ‘antique’.
LYRIC SHEET FOR 'PUPPET SONG' DEMO BY IKW
''The Hollow Haircut label is an offshoot of a publishing house, ostensibly a strange sideline, until you hear this debut offering from His Son Elroy. The words ‘bookish’ and ‘intellectual’ go hand in glove with too many singer-songwriters, as though singing quietly with an acoustic guitar automatically confers an honourary degree in literature. This though is the sound of room lights slowly appearing in The British Library at dusk, the intellect of the big city relayed through empathic, near-subliminal bucolica - played with jews’ harps, creaky synthesisers and the contents of the playroom music box. Imagine a grown up Beta Band never leaving their Three EP’s period. Alt. country is the scene of the moment, but here’s a new one. How about alt. city?''
ahh yi ist en Frahnce tel vur turwentee-seffenthe..uthurweiss ye wed bee thar fore shore!!wel tellyfond ont meese retourn. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
hello chaps nice to hear from you as always I enjoyed the music you've put up here. next time you're in London give me a shout and it would be cool to meet up take care and all the best Chris
