Elephant Sessions transcend boundaries and shake the very foundations of expectation.
Hailing from the Highlands of Scotland, Elephant Sessions are set to release their new album “ What Makes You” on May the 10th of this year.
Exploding onto the indie folk scene to unparalleled effect with their last album “All We Have Is Now”, the band have since appeared at some of the world’s most notable venues and festivals with audiences crowd surfing their way through the summer and marquee floors breaking under the weight of bouncing fans.
The Mercury nominated Alt-J, along with BBC Radio 6, found themselves converted to the band’s unique brand of indie folk. Reviews from Rolling Stone Magazine sat alongside folk magazine coverage. Radio features accompanied documentaries and highlights shows on television stations.
Charting in the French download charts and selling bucket loads across Europe, ‘All We Have Is Now’ firmly established this band as completely unique.
‘What Makes You’ promises to build on this success and sees the front line of mandolin and fiddle pushing their limits further, matching the percussive rhythm of drums, bass and guitar, whilst fusing with electronic dance beats. This is traditional music turned on its head, a re-invention of expectation, a brand new sound. It’s exciting.
“’What Makes You’ is a musical progression of the journey the band have been on since the last album” said mandolin player Alasdair Taylor. “We feel like our sound has matured and we’re playing and writing the music that we really want to be playing. Writing and performing the music from this new album has been so much fun so far and we can’t wait to release it for everyone to hear.”
2018 saw awards in abundance. Opening the year as winners of Album of the Year at the BBC Scotland Trad Awards, they went on to be finalists as Best Group at the BBC Radio 2 awards. In May, Belhaven Brewery got together with the band to award the first ever Belhaven Bursary for innovation in music. The bursary amount matches the Mercury Music prize and was awarded in recognition of their unique and outstanding sound. It was accompanied by the bands own beer ‘Elephant Sessions Ale’, which was launched in May 2018.
In August, the band also found themselves shortlisted for Scottish Album of the Year – an award covering every genre of music from indie, blues and rock to pop, folk and the individual sound that is Elephant Sessions.
Closing 2018 by picking up the coveted Live Band of the Year award (BBC Scots Trad Awards) the band, who met on the Newcastle University Folk Degree, are set to do no less with “What Makes You”. They have transformed traditional music and opened 2019 with performances across Europe. In April they head over to the US to play at the Belhaven Brew celebrations at Tartan Week in New York, before appearing at Bluesfest in Australia as part of the 30th anniversary line up.
Try to catch them if you can, this band have transformed traditional music.
DECEMBER
06 – Acapela Studio, Cardiff
07 – Pontio, Bangor
11 – The Apex, Bury St Edmunds
12 – The Old Laundry, Bowness-on-Windermere
13 – The Garage, Glasgow
14 – Mac Arts, Galashiels
20 – Ironworks, Inverness
