Elysian Fields are a curious case in the rock/pop/indie pantheon. A seeming contradiction in terms of their sound, mood, creative expression, recognition, and status as a band, what can be definitively said of them is that they are adaptive, consistent, and assured of a musical legacy, with their going-on-two decades discography.
For those who love and appreciate music as high art, Elysian Fields is associated with a sense of place that includes New York City as its birthplace and home base (Brooklyn to be exact, long before Brooklyn got all hipstered out), and Paris as its spiritual alter ego and European 'headquarters.' Certainly, their songs evoke a certain seediness, noir, sultriness, experimental, avant-garde, gothic, nocturnal, loungy confluence of new world and old world sensibilities, expression, and audacity so closely associated with these two ultra-prominent world cities.
And therein lie the contradictions. Sure, the sound that Elysian Fields has created and cultivated is very identifiable and, while certainly iconic and non-mainstream, is filled with motifs and common threads that carry from song to song, which paradoxically lend some level of conventionality to their approach.
For one, there's the instrumental/vocal/lyrical soundscape that stylistically links all of their 6 lps (on their website, they are announcing their 7th full-length LP, 'For House Cats and Sea Fans,' with a tentative release date of February 2014). This soundscape, in all but the rarest occasions, features the impossibly aching, breathy, ethereal, icy hot torch song aesthetic of lead vocalist and co-lyricist/co-founder Jennifer Charles, whose voice exudes primal sexuality, with a raw yet restrained intensity and fluid, jazzy delivery that in my opinion is virtually unparalleled in rock/pop/indie music. At least, in the English-language speaking world of artists. Clearly, her style and substance bear strong resemblance to the long lineage of European, particularly French, chanteuses like Edith Piaf, a lineage that dates back much further. One could imagine her in 1920's Paris, performing in small clubs and cafes on the Left Bank, or perhaps mesmerizing townfolk during the late-19th century somewhere in the French countryside, or even as an enchantress performing in medieval times. She would also fit in well as a fuzzy subject highlighted by Van Gogh colors in a late-night scene in such masterpieces as his 'The Night Café' series of paintings. Ms. Charles has sung in many languages on Elysian Fields and side projects, including in French, Ladino, Aramaic, Arabic, Spanish, and Greek. to an expectedly amplified sensual effect.
Adding to the Elysian sound cocktail is the minimalism of the instruments that accompany and enhance the moody, dark, mysterious, and seductive vibe that emanates from every sigh, purr, and whisper of provocative quietude, and in the soaring highs of Jennifer Charles' vocal and lyrical stylings. Co-founder and guitarist Oren Bloedow is the principal architect and co-arranger of this sound. As the defacto 'musical director' of the band (in fact he was a musical director by trade, pre-Elysian Fields), He populates the Elysian soundscape with the tastefully placed contributions of well-regarded live and session collaborators who provide flourishes of piano, stand-up acoustic bass, subtle use of keyboards and electronic programming, and Oren's own occasional gruff baritone lead vocals, harmonies, and rumbling, minimalist, knife-edged electric guitar strums.
But Elysian Fields are not just confined to the languid tempos that characterize the majority of their songs. Bloedow and Charles seem to throw in at least a few mid-tempo tracks on every album, and even the occasional up-tempo tune, for those more inclined to percolating groove than smoldering, sensual, slow song stomp. They infuse these more groove-oriented songs with additional orchestration (with occasional world fusion flair, including Indian mysticism), and more aggressive, yet still minimalist instrumentation. These songs are as moody as moody can be. Perfectly integrated with Jennifer Charles' ecstasy-drenched jazz phrasing, the instrumentation drips, steams, oozes, crawls, bleeds, drones, convulses, swings, shakes, syncopates, cascades, and swirls around her vocals, with occasional walls of guitar feedback to accentuate the more incendiary passages.
Whether of the slow, mid-, or up-tempo variety, these songs continue along a lyrical path that, by my own completely unscientific calculations, comprise roughly 90 percent of their output! The lyrics unfold as dream sequences, many bordering on the sinister, chaotic, nightmarish, and scandalously titillating. The songs immerse themselves in lurid themes of unbridled desire, such that when things are at their best for the protagonists, the results are thrilling, mind-blowing, naughty, and fantastical. In other instances, these same themes explore the star-crossed, dangerous, and potentially deadly nature of love and lust, including sexual obsession, psycho-sexual drama, torrid sexual affairs, secret sexual liaisons, animalistic sex, and quite possibly, sex with aliens--No I'm not making this shit up, yo!!! (See below, 'Set the Grass On Fire, 'Last Night on Earth').
So is this music Art Rock? Gothic Depresso, Horror Soundtrack-esque? Bedroom Nitey Nite Lullaby Rock? Dream Pop? Indie-Alterna Sex-clectica Erotica? All I can say is, labels mean nothing and these are questions to be explored and debated by the listener. Or not. But if you do, perhaps it's best explored with a partner who might engage in these explorations with you!
In any case, I won't go on blabbing and babbling any longer. It's time to let the music speak and seduce for itself. Here's a smattering of my favorite Elysian Fields tracks, presented in both video and audio format for your viewing and listening pleasure. Emphasis on pleasure. Let Jennifer Charles' alluring full-lipped pout and femme-fatale vocal musings drive you mad, crazy, and insane with desire. Don't deny yourself the ecstatic bliss that is this magnificently moody music. And yes, embrace the spacey sound of what sex in space, quite possibly with aliens, would sound like...
1. Jack in the Box (1996, MCA Records, from the LP Bleed Your Cedar)
2. Star (1996, MCA Records, from the LP Bleed Your Cedar)
3. Rolling (1996, MCA Records, from the LP Bleed Your Cedar)
4. Black Acres (2000, JetSet Records, from the LP Queen of the Meadow)
5. Bend Your Mind, LP Version (2000, JetSet Records, from the LP Queen of the Meadow)
Bend Your Mind, Live at Sans Pile Sessions, 2010
6. Tides of the Moon (2000, JetSet Records, from the LP Queen of the Meadow)
7. Drunk on Dark Sublime (2004, Diluvian Records, from the LP Dreams That Breathe Your Name)
8. Set the Grass On Fire (2007, Naïve Records, from the LP Bum Raps and Love Taps)
9. How We Die (2009, Reverb Records/Vicious Circle, from the LP The Afterlife)
10. Climbing My Dark Hair (2009, Reverb Records/Vicious Circle, from the LP The Afterlife)
Climbing My Dark Hair, Live in Lyon, France, 2009
11. Red Riding Hood (2011, Vicious Circle Records, from the LP Last Night on Earth)
12. Sweet Condenser (2011, Vicious Circle Records, from the LP Last Night On Earth)
13. Last Night On Earth (2011, Vicious Circle Records, from the LP Last Night On Earth)
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