Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie began Elfin Saddle after moving east across Canada from Vancouver Island to Montreal…their take on acoustic folk is charged with myth, mysticism, anarchism, and a love of wilderness…the alertness and drive of their luminous songs actually sounds electrified, but it’s not—they’ve prefigured a time in the post-apocalyptic future, after the machines of civilization have ground to a halt and the remaining humans will have to make their music without plugging in… -WZRD Chicago
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Listen to our DAYTROTTER session
Listen to GODS / SKY from Gigantic Mother / Wounded Child
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LYRICS FROM DEVASTATES
1. The Changing Wind
A wind is stirring up the ashes of a fire long ignored
You and I as ashes passes through fingers of sunshine in the morning
Every speck of ash caught in a wind may soon arrive at a different shore
Rearrange your reasoning as a wind surrounds your body’s fleeting form
Before this sail unfurling finds its full breadth, first its bindings
must be torn
Strip away all coverings and feel the swirling wind surround your body
Then the wind transforms you in an embrace and carries you off to a
different shore
2. KIBOHO (translated from Japanese)
Who lies awake? Who lies awake? Who rise with me?
Who ride away? Who ride away? Who Ride with me?
Running against the headwind with blurred eyes towards the shining line, the blue pulse, the waves calling
Every form of life
Is captive in the circle that begins here
Staring at the suffering
At the Cape of Good Hope
3. Boats
Once I tried to be your friend but I was undergoing change, the same
as you, the same as me
And from what I’ve heard you say, you feel quite certain of the way
the world will go, and so am I
4. The Power & The Wake
And bathing in the wake of the power
And I made my way through the brambles and the braes
Wandered in the blackness and wetted by the rain
Oh the wend of the weightless road
And I followed on a game trail the weightlessness wend
Haunted by a pathless wandering again
Oh the wend of the weightless road
And the power and the wake got me wringing my hands
Born a weightless rider
Take my hand, lead me back to wild wander
Born of a waking revival
5. Chaos Hand
And it danced across the forest to the street
We don’t have to live in fear of fiery gods
We can hide inside our sanctuary walls
They may as well lock us up and throw away the key
Oh I saw a hurricane upon the water under the morning sun
And by the shore the docks lay all in ruin
We don’t have to live to see a typhoon blow
We can hide inside a deep apartment row
They may as well lock us up and throw away the key
Oh I saw a fire rise around a building under the midday sun
And it spread to light the house across the street
We don’t have to run when chaos strikes our hand
We can hide beneath a steep insurance plan
They may as well lock us up and throw away the key
We don’t have to fear the storms in the distance
We’ve been brought into a safer existence
Oh I saw a storm advance across the water under a moonlit sky
And the reflected light was dancing gracefully
I don’t want to close my door on chaos hand
I want to feel her breathe across the land
Whenever I hide inside I throw away the key
6. Invocation (translated from Japanese)
The scent of the leaves rustling
The shimmering of the water rippling
The cycle of life thronging
The shimmering of the water rippling
7. In A Blanket of Leaves
Come take faith in a garden I know
Come take this branch and wave it
Fast disappearing to a faraway time
To an empty black void
Come take heed of a garden I know
Savour its beauty and fragrance
Fast disappearing as a ravenous meal
To an empty black void
Come make haste to a garden I know
Come with your plow and spade
Fast disappearing as a memory fades
To be burned at the wooden stake
Come make way for a garden I know
The garden that nurtures our bodies
Fast disappearing to the hungry desires
Of the consummate fire
Oh bury me whole
Cover me over
Carry me home
I’m at the back door hammering my hands
With a broken umbrella and striped suit
The rain it came roaring
All running through my clothing
A rumbling river at my feet
Now on the ground with the water all around
And the rainfall relentlessly goes on
Shook down all the leaves
From all the surrounding trees
Now I wear them like a blanket from the cold
8. The Wind Come Carry
(English lyrics)
Load the old in dark and dreariness
Prepare a place out in the sun
Carry out this baggage to the wind
Unload these cluttered surfaces
This is no refusal of the old
To leave them lying in the cold
This is a renewal of the young
To leave them breathing in the sun
Carry these neglected promises
Secure a place where they can breath
Offer these confessions to the wind
And watch them spiral to the sea
Place this old collection in the sun
Illuminate for everyone
Let the breeze roll over every seam
The wind uncover every stone
The wind will come in curious
The wind will come and carry it away
Let the wind come carry us
Let the wind come carry it away
Saddle up oh beast of burden
There is a trail ahead of us
Branches out in all directions
A sky of ashes and dust
Even as the ashes settle in
They’ll never have to shut you in
Carry out your compass to the sun
Onto a path you haven’t been
The wind will come in curious
The wind will come and carry it away
Let the wind come carry us
Let the wind come carry it away
(Japanese lyrics)
The silence of the blue wind blowing
The loneliness of the red sun burning
If you keep moving on without fear
It is waiting for me
Quiet, calm, peaceful days
Purple flowers are swinging
Gracefully as singing
If you keep moving on without fear
