Erland And The Carnival – Erland And The Carnival:

I think it’s safe to say this record is exactly what comes from a bunch of middle class guys “making a folk album”, unable to keep their wrists from jangling out an Arctic Monkeys’esque riff every minute or so. Ultimately, Erland and The Carnival are no more folk than Bob Dylan is. But who cares? Not me. A single play revealed only a small portion of its charms. Later on, it changed into something very different: an anatomical splicing of NY Jazz’ swinging body to 13th Floor Elevator’s head full of acid.

If any of you get off on literary references, my advice is not to listen to this record in public to avoid embarrassment. The band salute an assortment of frightfully British Britons, such as William Blake and Vaughan Williams, and use their artistic licence to adapt the high brow material. Tricks like this generally appeal to the kind of dicks who congratulate and fondle themselves while reading poetry at a Costa and want to be seen doing it. There’s none of that here. Erland and The Carnival’s loving inclusion of the old world is seamless, effective and very unpretentious.

Without the support of Simon Tong (the busybody ex-guitarist from The Verve, now following closely in Damon Albarn’s shadow) and the superior drumming talents of David Nock, this lounge indie concoction might be easily shelved and forgotten. This is not to say that Mr. Erland Cooper, a baritone songwriter with his own tale, would be unable stand up on his own. I mean that without them, the record would be missing a huge chunk of its allure. ‘My Name Is Carnival’, with its stumbling rhythms, trippy guitar slides topped with Cooper’s lazy jazz crooning, is a personal favourite – as is the impossibly catchy ‘One Morning Fair’.

The rest of the album is on more of an even plateau and slips into the background. The atmosphere that’s left behind, of familiar Romanticism crossed with modern London, is none-the-less enticing. Erland and The Carnival is Britain’s answer to the hipster Folk of Fleet Foxes; only smarter, more daring, rougher, denser, better. Its breezy and cool headed effortlessness could only be the work of true professionals.

(© Copyright 2010 Brendan Morgan)