Elfin Saddle

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release

5...according to our Brian on Fri 10 Dec, 2010.

Who are Elfin Saddle? This is a delightful & sumptuous package whatever. Seemingly they're an experimental folk/sound art duo (a 3-piece live) who also specialise in eccentric organic sculpture & stop-motion animation built around delightfully random detritus. This is the culmination of their work - a bizarre 23 minute film & some truly lovely music to accompany it - half of it the incidental score to the film of the same name. The music on side one of the vinyl has a charming waltzy folk & sea shanty feel with some piano & violin thrown in there to create a rustic improvised soundworld over the course of three tracks. Side Two's "OST" has a very strong impact, both on it's own & within the framework of the film, evolving in a very mesmeric fashion. Opening with rather Moondog-sounding hollow percussion & birdsong, this is a slowly shifting collage of magical samples & creaky, hypnotic folk improvisation which eventually blossoms into a wheezy drunken funeral march; a little like Matt Elliot's solo gear but considerably less forlorn & dark-core. Having watched the main 'Wurld' feature last night, I can safely say you'll be charmed & hypnotised by the ever-rotating cast of metal bits 'n' bobs, plastic toy ephemera, clockwork artifacts & random curios mingling with the natural "wurld" (a corner of some garden somewhere) It all gets quite metropolis at one point and has an undeniable poignancy. Not to mention the fact you also get a full riveting live concert filmed at the Montreal Contemporary Arts Centre! A lovely thing to buy a loved one for Christmas; all presented in an amazing thick die-cut recycled card sleeves with numerous cool inserts & shit. Constellation always push the boat out, will they actually get it back to shore after this multimedia feast? For fans of Tunng, The Books & The Microphones/Mount Eerie!!

* Elfin Saddle began working with Constellation in late 2008. At the same time, the band's co-founders, Emi Honda and
Jordan McKenzie, were also completing a year-long art project involving sculpture, stop-motion animation and time-lapse
video. Using the backyard of their Montreal apartment as an installation site, Emi and Jordan evolved and devolved an
entire miniature world, conjuring an historical arc of civilization from early settlement and relative harmony with nature to
gradual industrialisation, mechanisation and the inevitable discontents of over-production, waste and decline.

* The resulting work is a wondrous, unpretentious, gently mystical 23-minute video piece entitled WURLD, for which they
also composed the soundtrack. WURLD premiered at the Vienna International Film Festival in November 2009 and
received a Canadian premiere at the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal (MACM) in May 2010.

* Elfin Saddle's WURLD is available in two formats, each using 100% recycled papers and boards:

* Custom DVD package is a screen-printed 25 pt. chipboard gatefold jacket with front cover die-cut window, containing a
series of four full-colour 5"x7" postcards featuring stills from the WURLD film (each of which can be positioned to shine
through the window cut) and a 7"x14" duotone art print. Limited to 1000 for the world.

* 10" vinyl package is similarly screen-printed and die-cut on the same thick board, with a 10"x10" full colour insert card,
the 5"x7" postcard set, and a larger 10"x20" duotone art print poster. The 10" package includes the DVD in a printed
sleeve, inserted in the vinyl jacket. Limited to 500 for the world.

* WURLD represents a new convergence in the art and music practice of Emi and Jordan, who also produced beautiful
new drawings and collages for the package design and insert poster. Constellation is very proud to be presenting a truly
multi-media work by these unique and talented artists.

* For Fans Of: Silver Mt. Zion, Clues, Deerhoof.

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!