Ringing for the Begin Again

VINYL FORMAT. Elfin Saddle is the musical project co-founded by Jordan McKenzie and Emi Honda. Partners in life and in art, 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.