Elanors - Movements CD

Artist: Elanors Title: Movements Catalog#: Parasol-CD-101 Regular Price: $10.00 Official Release Date: October 17, 2006	Tracks on Movements:
	The Lion
	Counsel Of Bodies
	She Had A Dream [FREE MP3]
	Theiving Kings
	Drifters
	Do You Know My Name
	Tricks
	Compass

‘‘Movements’ is the new album from Chicago’s Elanors, vocalists Noah (piano) and Adriel Harris (guitar) backed by the rhythm section of Daniel Johnson and Rodrigo Palma (both members of Judah Johnson). This, their second album, is a collection of piano-driven orchestral-pop and disarming folkrock invention. Like concert music for dirty clubs, Elanors’ music is delicate yet severe; mannered yet devastating; antique yet futuristic. It’s often said that everything good to come out of music in the last 40 years comes from the Beatles. But for inspiration, Elanors instead dip into the centuries of material which preceded the ‘60s – Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, Britten – and set their own blurred, romantic, and fractured song-pieces to sub bass and elastic beats. There’s a precedent for this; bands like Blonde Redhead and Radiohead have used baroque chord progressions and melodies to gorgeous effect; and Jeff Buckley and Talk Talk used sprawling, almost symphonic forms, which rethought what a rock song could be. Elanors see themselves both as part of this great tradition as well as innovators within it.

A first encounter with the music of Elanors can be beautiful but disorienting – if only because today’s music listener wants to classify something to appreciate it. But for Noah Harris – lead vocalist, pianist and songwriter for Elanors – that moment where something draws you in for sheer beauty alone, and you set aside your need to understand it, is the essential moment in the appreciation of art.

Noah, after performing under his own name for several years, formed Elanors with his wife Adriel Harris (vocals, guitar) in 2003. Movements is the second Elanors record, but first as a band (in 2004 they released A Year to Demonstrate, intimate home recordings which Noah and Adriel made with their wedding money). Then in 2005, Daniel Johnson (Judah Johnson), after first coming in to produce, joined the band on drums & soon brought in his musical collaborator in Judah Johnson, Rodrigo Palma, on bass.

A thread of political discourse runs through Movements, which is surprisingly free of the condescension found in most political music. This is protest music based in the most loving humanism and a pure vision of a new human relation made by young adults who are still figuring it all out for themselves.


Elanors Shows:

ELANORS/NOAH HARRIS SOLO:

JANUARY 12 Champaign, IL @ HIGHDIVE 10:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Cory Chisel & Wandering Sons, Cameron McGill, & Elsinore

JANUARY 13 St. Louis, MO @ FINALE 7:30PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Cameron McGill

JANUARY 18 Appleton, WI @ THE GARAGE 7:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO

JANUARY 25 Dekalb, IL @ THE HOUSE CAFE 8:00PM
Elanors w/ Judah Johnson

JANUARY 26 Madison, WI @ CAFE MONMARTE 9:00PM
Elanors w/ Judah Johnson & Gabriel Reed

FEBRUARY 1 Appleton, WI @ THE GARAGE 7:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO

FEBRUARY 8 Appleton, WI @ THE GARAGE 7:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO

FEBRUARY 15 Appleton, WI @ THE GARAGE 7:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO

FEBRUARY 22 Urbana, IL @ THE COURTYARD CAFE 8:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer

FEBRUARY 23 2007 8:00P
Noah Harris at The Chapel with Denison Witmer Lake Forest, Illinois

FEBRUARY 24 2007 8:00P
Noah Harris at The Billiken Club with Denison Witmer St. Louis, Missouri

FEBRUARY 25 Chicago, IL @ THE BEAT KITCHEN 8:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer

FEBRUARY 26 Appleton, WI @ LAWRENCE UNIV. UNDERGROUND CAFE 8:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer

FEBRUARY 27 Duluth, MN @ LATE NIGHT KIRBY 8:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer

FEBRUARY 28 Madison, WI @ THE HIGH NOON 8:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer Madison, Wisconsin

MARCH 1 Wheaton, IL @ WHEATON PERFORMING ARTS 8:00Pm
Noah Harris SOLO w/ Denison Witmer

MARCH 8 Appleton, WI @ THE GARAGE 7:00PM
Noah Harris SOLO


Praise:

ALL MUSIC GUIDE: "The eight electronic nocturnes here are soothing, soaring, and ultimately unsettling; mood music for the paranoid and disaffected." (Andy Whitman)

POSITIVELY YEAH YEAH YEAH (syndicated):
"Classy, pensive piano pop from the Chicago duo, backed by members of Judah Johnson." (John M. James)

TREBLEZINE:
"The songs are in that area of beauty that is reserved for the serendipitous and the chance occurrences that glimmer in the mind: a butterfly crawling out of its chrysalis in a sun shower; a rainbow over the empty span of a river; swinging in sync on a swing set with a girl who years later will come to marry you. These are the kind of events that The Elanors' Movements describes indirectly..." (Paul Bozzo)

CHILL MAG:
"Chicago just lost The Like Young. Instead of crying about it, listen to Elanors, another local band headed up by yet another married couple/songwriting duo, Noah and Adriel Harris, who sound eerily like Rufus and Martha Wainwright. On Movements, the band’s second album and first on Parasol (former home of the now-defunct, but still married The Like Young), they reintroduce us to charmingly pure orchestral pop. Think Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago,” only more down-tempo and down right sexier..." (Jamie Murnane)


Past Praise:

SPLENDID: “This couple deliver their songs with such genuine ardor that it's easy to believe they'd sound the same if no-one else was listening…”

ONE TIMES ONE: “Absolutely the greatest indie band to come out of the Chicagoland area for a very long time…”

MADISON (WI) CORE WEEKLY: "Think Radiohead, only prettier"

More hi-res: Elanors_A | Elanors_B | Elanors_C

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