Ringing for the Begin Again

A Montreal-based duo of sometime video/installation artists Emi Honda and Jordan McKenzie, Elfin Saddle transfer their experience in transforming scavenged junkyard objects into works of art to the musical stage, creating a uniquely hybridized vision of folk built from exquisite melodies deployed against layers of droning accordion and rattling ambient percussion. Reinforcing the timeless/placeless ethno-folk feel is a range of instrumental textures from acoustic guitar and banjo to xylophone and bells, making for an evocative, richly-layered song cycle whose otherness is further augmented by Emi's singing in her native Japanese tongue.