{"title":"Elfin Saddle","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ringing-for-the-begin-again-1","title":"Ringing For The Begin Again","description":"\u003cp\u003eelfin saddle is the musical project co-founded by jordan mckenzie and emi honda. jordan and emi have been building a wonderful body of visual, installation and video art that combines organic living materials with found and scavenged objects to create enchanted environments of growth, slow transformation and gradual decay. miniature examples of this work can be seen on the album cover art for this, their second record, and first for constellation. elfin saddle's music is gently mystical, calmly wide-eyed, and consistently guided by crystalline melodies deployed over the group's building blocks of accordion and junkyard percussion. jordan and emi trade off on these instruments and on vocal duties, with jordan singing in english and emi in japanese. supplemented by acoustic guitar, ukulele, banjo, xylophone and bells, the result is a truly unique hybrid folk music, woven from simple, insistent instrumental elements and vocal rounds. the addition of nathan gage (shapes and sizes) on double bass and tuba creates a new anchor for these magical tunes. both formats come packaged in 100% recycled cardstock jackets with original artwork by the band. also includes additional artwork and lyric sheet. for fans of : alexander tucker and asmz.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50491038171467,"sku":"312680","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/780fa995-4a90-42d5-83a7-9c4696ad2cfa_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727681081"},{"product_id":"devastates","title":"Devastates","description":"\u003cp\u003evinyl is 180 gram and comes with poster. elfin saddle deepens its compositional and conceptual agenda on devastates, the band's third full-length album and its most urgent, ornate and impassioned work to date. the montreal group, led by multi-instrumentalists emi honda and jordan mckenzie (who also share vocal duties), has always shown a profound engagement with issues of environmental sustainability and the emotional impact of economic\/political ideologies that continually foreclose on the possibility of genuine, progressive renewal and redirection. the band's music-making - and the parallel art practice on display in honda and mckenzie's installation and video work - investigates the tensions between nature and technology on multiple levels. with devastates, this is explicit in the lyrical narrative of the album as a whole and implicit in the band's use of found and re-purposed objects to create its soundworld. the new album weds an operetta-style song cycle to an organic, junkshop aesthetic to great effect, forging a unique hybrid folk music that weaves honda's trilling vocals (often singing in japanese) and mckenzie's woodsy, unaffected baritone with threads of clattering steam-engine percussion, ukulele, accordion, glockenspiel and pump organ. the addition of kristina koropecki's cello alongside long-standing third member nathan gage (shapes \u0026amp; sizes) on upright bass allows for a doubly melodic\/rhythmic low-end. recorded in a small abandoned chapel in rural quebec, devastates is intimate and humbly epic, anchored by a diy aesthetic and fuelled by the desire to say something both critical and hopeful about our common earthly trajectory.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50491258798411,"sku":"348751","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/9a6dece6-040a-4103-ac63-61d97da91713_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727684305"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/elfin-saddle.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}