John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas! - The
Fall and Rise of John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas!
You won’t hear another release like
this in 2017. John Elderkin has surrounded himself with a cadre of top shelf of
North Carolina indie musicians, a virtual all-star roster of regional talent,
in order to pull off this sprawling seventeen song collection entitled The Fall
and Rise of John Elderkin and ¡Moonbeams No Mas! and they are more than capable
of aiding him in realizing his wild ambitions. This is a tribute of sorts and
testament to the effect David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
exerted over Elderkin’s imagination, but it is also a monumental riff on that
classic album that finds Elderkin re-envisioning its impact on him with a
distinctive individual artistic point of view that moves this far away from
mere imitation. It’s a collection rich with characterizations, a love for the
musician’s life coupled with some jaundiced humor at its pratfalls, and
undeniably intelligent from first note to last.
The first full song on the album, “We
Waited Five Years”, is one of the album’s direct references to Ziggy Stardust
and embodies the aforementioned wont of Elderkin’s songwriting to mix pathos
with dashes of smirking humor. A truly singular voice comes from this recording
– it bears some marks of modern influences, but everything is so seamlessly
transmuted through Elderkin’s personality that it renders such observations
mute or meaningless. “Song for David Bowie” might prompt some listeners to
believe it’s another in a long line of heavy handed, but well meant, tributes
to the Thin White Duke, but this song takes on a much larger scope beyond
merely paying Bowie his due and patiently unfolds into something quite
memorable. It confines itself to acoustic guitar and vocals for much of its
duration before expanding in the second half to include electric guitars and
forceful, slightly uptempo drumming. “Gather Your Strength” has some gritty
electric guitar and a steady march tempo with Elderkin’s relatively sweet,
clean vocals offsetting the dissonance from the instruments.
“Don’t Look Straight Into the Sun” is,
arguably, the most guitar heavy song on the album and features some
particularly blazing axe work in the second half. It has an ambitious scope
that finds Elderkin and his collaborators moving through an assortment of
textures and tempos as well as including more of the evocative lyrical content
that contributes to this being such a memorable release. “Get Back in the Van”
is a band on the road song quite unlike you’ve likely heard before and has one
of the best opening lines of any track on the album. Elderkin’s vocal gets over
the storytelling aspects of the song in a gripping way that ensures even
listeners who have never been in a band will relate to its sentiments. There
are two instrumentals, “Teletar” and “A Trip to the Moon”, that set up the
album’s climatic number “Give Me Your Hands”. It’s a surprisingly low-fi
conclusion to a grandiose album and has the same hazy, dream-like ambiance
defining many of the other tracks. It ends the release on a satisfying note and
ties everything in quite nicely. This is, as the review began, a truly unique
release unlike anything else you’ve heard in recent history and well worth your
time and money.
Joshua Stryde
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