Elfin Saddle http://www.elfinsaddle.com Canadian Art Band Tue, 15 May 2012 15:33:47 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 welcome http://www.elfinsaddle.com/welcome/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/welcome/#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 20:20:23 +0000 elfinsaddle http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=550 http://www.elfinsaddle.com/welcome/feed/ 0 art page posts http://www.elfinsaddle.com/331/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/331/#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 02:58:25 +0000 elfinsaddle http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=331 artbuttonemi22artbuttonjordan22artbuttoncollab22

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Flora and Fauna from the Growing Sea of Engines is a surprisingly engaging creation, in an age when much contemporary art is austere and inaccessible. Ephemeral, collaborative, multi-media: this is many things, and it is truly a work of art. -The Times Colonist

Click here to view the embedded video.

Flora & Fauna from the growing sea of engines (2005, Open Space, Victoria BC)

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CONTACT

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/331/feed/ 0 NEWS POSTS http://www.elfinsaddle.com/north-american-tour-w-sunset-rubdown-witchies/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/north-american-tour-w-sunset-rubdown-witchies/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 20:57:10 +0000 elfinsaddle http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=117 *        *        *        *        *        *        *

¡ D E V A S T A T E S !

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EUROPE:

Click here to view the embedded video.

CHANGING WIND:

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+ A MUDDY TRAIL MIXTAPE

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CD / 12″ RECORD AVAILABLE NOW ON CONSTELLATION

Click here to view the embedded video.

LYRICS FROM DEVASTATES

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¡ T O U R   E U R O P E !

18/05 > AMSTERDAM (NL) > VAN GOGH MUSEUM

19/05 > GRONINGEN (NL) > GRONINGER MUSEUM

20/05 > EINDHOVEN (NL) > TAC

24/05 > LILLE (FR) > LA PENICHE

25/05 > LUXEMBOURG (LUX) > DQLIQ

26/05 > BRUGGE (BE) > CACTUS

28/05 > DRESDEN (DE) > DISCORPORATE FESTIVAL

29/05 > LEIPZIG (DE) > UT CONNEWITZ

30/05  > BERLIN (DE) > HBC

01/06 > Torpåkra (SE) > Torpåkra Ljudstation

02/06 > Gerlesborg (SE) > Gerlesborgsskolan

03/06 > Strömstad (SE) > Restaurang Trädgården

04/06 > Jönköping (SE) > POPFLOTTEN

05/06 > Eskilstuna (SE) > Eskilstuna teater

06/06 > Stockholm (SE) > Mother

07/06 > Udevalla (SE) > Udevallakasetten

08/06 > Göteborg (SE) > Clandestino Festival

09/06 > Fengersfors (SE) > Not Quite

10/06 > Malmö (SE) > Skånes Konstförening

11/06 > Hamburg (DE) > Astrastube

12/06 > Hannover (DE) > Cafe Glocksee

13/06 > Nuernberg (DE) > MUZ

14/06 > Frankfurt (DE) > Azita Store

15/06 > Luzern (CH) > B-Sides Festival

16/06 > Geneva (CH) > Buz’art Festival

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SIGN UP FOR OUR MAILING LIST HERE

(JUST SAY MAILING LIST IN THE SUBJECT)

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W  U  R  L  D

CONSTELLATION

“A 23 minute film that charts the rise and fall of an entire civilisation –
with a beguiling and extremely effective soundtrack to match.” -WIRE

“A small, assured statement of artistry and example
by one of Constellation’s most intriguing new bands.” -THE 405

 

wurld-dvd-spread2

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HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE DVD (LIVE CONCERT)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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AND A TRAILER FOR WURLD

Click here to view the embedded video.

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BOREAL GROWTHS AND OTHER DISTURBANCES

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This is footage of an installation we built last summer in Dawson, Yukon with our friend and collaborator, Scott Evans as part of NATURAL AND MANUFACTURED series at the Klondike Institute of Arts and Culture. All sound was captured live in the space.  For more photos visit our ART COLLABORATIONS page.

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CONTACT

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/north-american-tour-w-sunset-rubdown-witchies/feed/ 0 store http://www.elfinsaddle.com/storestore/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/storestore/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:30:56 +0000 admin http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=14

DEVASTATES CD / LP

wurld-lp5

WURLD  DVD / 10″ RECORD

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RINGING FOR THE BEGIN AGAIN CD / LP

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GIGANTIC MOTHER / WOUNDED CHILD  CD

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/storestore/feed/ 0 linx http://www.elfinsaddle.com/links-links/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/links-links/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:30:29 +0000 admin http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=13 Constellation Records

Villa Villa Nola Download Records

Elfin Saddle Facebook

Kill Devil Hills Records

Edible Forest Gardens

Build It Solar

Elfin Saddle Wikipedia

Cold Splinters

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/links-links/feed/ 0 land posts http://www.elfinsaddle.com/land-post-1land-post-1/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/land-post-1land-post-1/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:30:06 +0000 admin http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=12

plant-root1

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09-10-emetic-russulas

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09-10-window-mushrooms

plant-root21

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/land-post-1land-post-1/feed/ 0 film synopsis http://www.elfinsaddle.com/film-post-1film-post-1/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/film-post-1film-post-1/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:29:31 +0000 admin http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=11

W  U  R  L  D

FROM WIRE MAGAZINE, MARCH 2011:

Did you ever, as a child, construct a tiny private world in your back garden? Can you remember spending long days hypnotised by the miniature, lost in the intimate intricacies of scale? Over the course of one year, Jordan McKenzie and Emi Honda of Canadian duo Elfin Saddle transformed the backyard of their Montréal apartment into an evolving installation, incorporating plants, sculpture and assemblages, which they documented using stop-motion and timelapse photography. The result is Wurld, a 23 minute film that charts the rise and fall of an entire civilisation – with a beguiling and extremely effective soundtrack to match.
History begins with pebbles and wood in jungle surroundings, organising themselves into primitive structures: a harmonious simplicity conveyed through rudimentary rhythms, banjo, birdsong and the sound of scratchy vinyl signifying antiquity. With creeping industrialisation comes metal and machinery, then furnaces and fences, and the sound of rusty clanks and mechanistic loops. As ‘progress’ accelerates – and the greenery dwindles – metal gives way to plastic. Wurld becomes crowded, cluttered with useless debris and detritus, soundtracked by sped-up tapes and disorientating info-flickers, rushing headlong into madness and extinction. …
The animation conveys a rickety wonder: like a more innocent version of Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer…
- Daniel Spicer

To screen Wurld please contact us

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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wurld31

]]> http://www.elfinsaddle.com/film-post-1film-post-1/feed/ 0 band posts http://www.elfinsaddle.com/mushroom-circle/ http://www.elfinsaddle.com/mushroom-circle/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:02:15 +0000 elfinsaddle http://www.elfinsaddle.com/?p=464

 


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 SAKURA from Ringing For The Begin Again

 

Listen to GODS / SKY from Gigantic Mother / Wounded Child

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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pink-logging21

 

LYRICS FROM DEVASTATES

 

1. The Changing Wind

Come out from all hidings on this morning, leave your blankets by the door
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?

Stirring up the dust, running through the barren land in the burning sand and air
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

Oh our boats upon the sea are very beautiful to view by me, I hope by you

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

Gone are the days of the weightless pathways
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

Oh I saw a fire roll across a mountain under the setting sun
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 invocation of the land roaring
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

 

CONTACT

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