Elysian Fields (moody pop, sultry female vocals)

Twin-Peaks-aesthetic/Hope Sandoval-adjacent band that have been going for ages - 15 albums! Anyone out there familiar with their work?

Their first couple albums were fantastic. Jennifer Charles was OTT sultry but perfectly so.

Totally coincidentally, I was listening to Jennifer Charles on Lydia Lunch''s podcast yesterday. I had no idea that the album they recorded with Albini finally came out.

I saw her sing once at a salon in 2011 thereabouts, she was extremely sultry. I enjoyed her performance but never checked her out... and would frequently confuse this band (Elysian Fields) with Alarm Will Sound and Shudder To Think (I don't know why I get these very different groups confused, my mind always has to do a subroutine to remember which once is which when they're brought up). "It's something from New York," I guess

Elvis, that Albini story is really odd. From wikipedia: "We made our second full length with Steve Albini. It wasn't at all what the label was looking for, or wanted. The label wanted us to redo things, go in with more commercial people, and give them songs that they could sell. I didn't want to mess with what we made with Steve. It was what it was. In the end we agreed to disagree, I asked to be released from my contract, and we parted ways. For now it sits in some vault gathering dust, I suppose."[2] (Entitled Clinical Trial, the album was eventually released on the band's bandcamp page in 2014.)

Anyway, I saw them live last weekend, which was more or less my first exposure to them, and really enjoyed it. Very sparse and noir-ish. They mostly played the new album, so any back-catalogue guidance would be appreciated.

I never quite understood that whole Albini business. Was the album yanked by the label when it was half completed? The only version of 'Clinical Trial' I've heard had only six songs totaling about 20-25 minutes. I first heard what must have been a leak about 10 years before the bandcamp release. Listening now, it sounds like a typical Albini-fied turn with all distorted guitar and hardly any of the jazz-tinged gypsy feeling of their other early records. I can see why a label might not want to release it, although less for commercial reasons than for not being very compelling.

Apparently EF posted more about the album on their Instagram page right after Albini passed. Little else on the label hassles though.

Yesterday’s news on the passing of Steve Albini was a gut punch. Steve was very much an ally. We are truly saddened by his unexpected passing.

Many of you may know that we made our second record with Steve. At the time we were on a major label, and we were told that for our second album they wanted a name. So of course we came up with the most non-name name we could conjure-Steve. It took some convincing but finally, we got them to agree. Our first meeting with Steve was in London at Abbey Road Studios where he was working with Page and Plant. JP had me quaking in my boots a bit, but Steve’s casual nonchalance immediately put me at ease. He took us to the commissary there and the conversation flowed. He explained with something of an eye roll, that the Page and Plant record was taking six months and how that was madness for him, and not at all the pace which he preferred to work. He also showed us studio 2 where the Beatles recorded, which we loved seeing. I remember him explaining the echo wall panel that gave a natural reverb.

And so it went that later in 1997 we went to Chicago to record with Steve at Electrical Audio. We were in jumpsuit land! Steve carried himself with an outward cantankerousness, but from time to time you might see little shards of joy or natural delight burst forth unexpectedly.

I watched how he was with his amazing cat Fluss, how he spared no affection or love on this long haired wonder-cat, and knew Steve was a person I could relate to at heart. He had a passion for good food, good music, good thinking. He told us his father was the world’s leading expert on forest fires! He showed me how to make homemade mayonnaise, which at the time was a complete revelation for me. He had an amazing old Waring blender which had been his father’s at MIT. There were two settings on it- Rocks & Fingers. I think we made mayonnaise every day. He also had a great film collection there. I recall watching the Errol Morris film “Gates of Heaven” there, as well as “Brother’s Keeper”, the Sinofsky/Berlinger doc.

Practical, principled, intelligent, quick witted are some ways I would describe him, but I also remember how he would soften for his partner Heather, and the kind solicitousness he showed toward her. Yes, he was a person, like most of us, of many contradictions.
As for our record, at the end of the day, it was rejected by the record company. They declared it too raw, and uncommercial. Which they were right about. But we were OK with that. We knew what we were getting with Steve Albini. The upside was that I understood more about the business after that. Rather than re-record the songs with someone more commercial, I asked to be released from the big machine, and we’ve been flying indie ever since. Steve was an inspiration and ended up being there at a pivotal moment in our musical path.

Here are a few never before seen pics from our time making Clinical Trial (aka The Albini album, aka the lost album). If you want to listen to what we made with Steve, you’ll find it on our Bandcamp page, link in bio etc. Thank you Steve. You gave so much to music and musicians.

I liked Queen Of The Meadow, it seemed to be their most popular album when I bought it over a decade ago. That Lunch interview is good too

I played the hell out of their debut at the time but never heard anything else by them. Their discography is a bit intimidating - any tips?

the new one is great