Chicago's Elanors, vocalists Noah (piano) and Adriel Harris (guitar) backed by the rhythm section of Daniel Johnson and Rodrigo Palma (both members of Judah Johnson). This, their second album, is a collection of piano-driven orchestral-pop and disarming folkrock invention. Like concert music for dirty clubs, Elanors’ music is delicate yet severe; mannered yet devastating; antique yet futuristic. It’s often said that everything good to come out of music in the last 40 years comes from the Beatles. But for inspiration, Elanors instead dip into the centuries of material which preceded the ‘60s – Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, Britten – and set their own blurred, romantic, and fractured song-pieces to sub bass and elastic beats. There’s a precedent for this; bands like Blonde Redhead and Radiohead have used baroque chord progressions
and melodies to gorgeous effect; and Jeff Buckley and Talk Talk used sprawling, almost symphonic forms, which rethought what a rock song could be. Elanors see themselves both as part of this great tradition as well as innovators within it.
A first encounter with the music of Elanors can be beautiful but disorienting – if only because today’s music listener wants to classify something to appreciate it. But for Noah Harris – lead vocalist, pianist and songwriter for Elanors – that moment where something draws you in for sheer beauty alone, and you set aside your need to understand it, is the essential moment in the appreciation of art.
Noah, after performing under his own name for several years, formed Elanors with his wife Adriel Harris (vocals, guitar) in 2003. Movements is the second Elanors record, but first as a band (in 2004 they released A Year to Demonstrate, intimate home recordings which Noah and Adriel made with their wedding money). Then in 2005, Daniel Johnson (Judah Johnson), after first coming in to produce, joined the band on drums & soon brought in his musical collaborator in Judah Johnson, Rodrigo Palma, on bass.
A thread of political discourse runs through Movements, which is surprisingly free of the condescension found in most political music. This is protest music based in the most loving humanism and a pure vision of a new human relation made by young adults who are still figuring it all out for themselves.
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