Erland And The Carnival - Erland And The Carnival

Apropos Erland & The Carnival: Hinter dem britischen Folkrock Trio stecken Erland Cooper (Gesang, Gitarre), David Nock (Drums, Percussion, Gesang) und Simon Tong (Gitarre, Harmonium, Gesang), der bereits Mitglied bei The Verve, Blur und The Good, The Bad & The Queen war. Ihr erstes Album bietet einen erstaunlich wohlklingenden Mix aus US-amerikanischem Folk und britischem Psychedelic-Pop und man mag gar nicht glauben, dass es sich um eine aktuelle Aufnahme und nicht um ein Album aus den späten 60er oder frühen 70er Jahren handelt. Das Gleiche dachte ich zuletzt bei The Corals "Roots & Echoes" und das ist sicherlich nicht die schlechteste Referenz.

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(...) The best example of this is The Derby Ram – an update of the traditional ballad about the giant ram which got the city its emblem. It recounts the story of 17-year-old Shaun Dykes who, in 2008, jumped from the top of a car-park in the city centre while the gathered crowd below had shouted "jump" and filmed him on their phones. Cooper uses the old A Day in the Life trick of lifting scenes straight from the newspaper, telling Dykes' story through quotes from the scene. It's a modern parable that's infinitely scarier than a big sheep.

Elsewhere, William Blake's verse The Echoing Green is set to a hypnotic offbeat guitar part that Cooper hides his voice behind. Leonard Cohen's return-to-libido poem Disturbed This Morning is given a curious reworking that makes it more wanderlust than old-man lust, and My Name Is Carnival a cover of a track by tragic 60s folk singer Jackson C Frank (which gives the band their name) is a buxom, jazzy, introduction to the Carnival's shtick.

It's a curiosity alright, one you can file next to similarly interesting backwards-looking modern bands like The Decemberists, The Coral and Mystery Jets. A freakbeat take on sample culture.
(bbc.co.uk)

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