The Trunk 28/12/2018: 10 David Elliott, CEO, Myths Debunked

A few months back, we took a moment to set the record straight on a few major misconceptions we'd been seeing about the label. Nonetheless, the rumour mill has continued unabated, and so, today, on the birthday of David Elliott, CEO, we must return once more to cast aside these vicious aspersions.

Buckle up.

David Elliott, CEO, started BEM as a serious venture.
FALSE. BEM was started as just one cog in an overelaborate practical joke and David just hasn't worked up the courage to tell anybody yet, suspecting that it'd rather ruin the fun for everyone who's put their time and money into the project. It's okay, he never reads this thing, so there's probably no harm in me telling you now.

David Elliott, CEO, had too good a time in the 90s.
FALSE. David insists that he didn't actually have a good enough time in the 90s, on account of all the terrible music and questionable fashion choices, as well as the arrival of a certain nagging dependent towards the end of the decade. No idea who that was.

David Elliott, CEO, doesn't listen to all the bands he signs.
ONLY TECHNICALLY TRUE. David doesn't listen to any of the bands he signs, otherwise he'd never find the time to sign bands. Actually listening to the music falls to Martin, James, and the BEM cat, Sid.

Sid, hard at work.

David Elliott, CEO, is hypoallergenic.
FALSE. David causes allergic reactions in susceptible individuals at distances of up to half a mile. Tragically, this includes David himself, who has been known to react unfavourably to his own beard.

David Elliott, CEO, was once arrested for Prog Crimes.
FALSE. They were Folk Crimes, and that's all I'm legally cleared to tell you.

David Elliott, CEO, is spicy.
PROBABLY FALSE. David is famed for his low spice tolerance, as exemplified by his official approach to curry: "nothing warmer than a korma". David himself is not believed to be spicy, but, without access to his full taste spectrum, we really have no way to be sure.

David Elliott, CEO, was briefly an uncredited member of National Health.
MOSTLY FALSE. While David never played for National Health, he did, at one point, bear a very slight resemblance to a bearded Alan Gowen, and could probably have played if he'd wanted to, provided that he got in early and security didn't bother to check.

David Elliott, CEO, is soluble in water.
FALSE. Human skin does "prune up" after prolonged contact with water, and David's is no different, but even extensive testing with powerful fire hoses failed to make so much as a dent in him. He then confiscated the fire hoses, which I honestly can't argue with. They were powerful.

David Elliott, CEO, is a Manchurian Candidate-style sleeper agent, programmed by the KGB just days before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
NYET. Extensive vetting processes have confirmed that David's mind is completely free of Soviet interference, at least for now. He's checked regularly as company policy, and we'll be the first to let you know if he starts displaying an unusual affinity for the colour red or starts talking about the means of production again.

David Elliott, CEO, isn't cool.
FALSE. He's very cool indeed. The coolest cat in town. Happy birthday, David!

Status Update

Preorders for A Map in Fragments and Close to Vapour are up and running, with less than a week left to go on the former, and 'Truck' is finally out. The real highlight of today, though, is David's birthday, which all BEM employees are required to celebrate as part of their contract. With that in mind, we'd better go get the party cannons set up - see you next week!

The Trunk 21/1/2018: The Trunk on The Trunk

That title might have tripped you up, but don't worry, everything's fine. Do not adjust your set.

Today, the 21st, is the 21st birthday of Huw Elliott, the mysterious nocturnal PR gremlin behind The Trunk. So, naturally, The Trunk decided to sit down with him and ask him a few questions about what it's like working for the best record label ever to be named Bad Elephant Music.

The Trunk: So how did you become the terrifying PR gremlin you are today?

Huw Elliott: Well, hypothetical second Trunk writer who's definitely not me, it was really very simple. I started out just writing press releases as a way to practice writing in a slightly different medium. It was a nice change from the thousands of words of essays I was having to crank out at the time. Very refreshing.

I'd been doing this for a while and then David suggested that I step up and try something a little more regular and scheduled. We were doing our Advent Calendar at the time, the Christmas event where we had a featured track every day of December up until Christmas Day, and I took over the track writeups as a sort of trial period. It worked pretty well, I stuck to it, and, just over a year later, I'm still bloody doing it.

TT: Have you ever found that your music tastes clash with what BEM releases?

HE: I'll admit that I was a little bit worried about that when I started out. I kind of had BEM pegged as a prog label, and, unlike a lot of our audience and most of the rest of the staff, I'm not a devoted prog fan. I do like a lot of progressive music, and I hear plenty of it through David, but my personal tastes lie towards the faster, heavier side of the musical spectrum, and often the more electronic side, too. I'll give almost anything a whirl, but I don't love prog with quite the same passion as I used to.

But that's never been a problem for me because, as far as I'm concerned, BEM isn't really a prog label. I look back over what we released last year, for instance, and there aren't really that many albums I could comfortably call prog without a lot of caveats attached. Some of what we put out is pretty familiar territory for me, but some is in genres I wouldn't really have touched otherwise, and some is hard to pin down into any particular genre. And I really enjoy that. Left to my own devices, I tend to recede into my comfort zone, and it doesn't hurt to be drawn out of it.

Only after extensive preparations can the PR gremlin venture out into the sunlight.

TT: How have things changed since you started out?

HE: Even though we've cut down the number of posts we make per week, I think I'm about as busy as I was when I started out. I'm on a much looser leash than I used to have, in terms of what I can post and some of the ways I can get creative with content - that's how this blog came about, really, as a way to write something slightly longer-form than a Facebook post.

We do release a hell of a lot more than we used to. David mentioned something along these lines in his interview, but we schedule a fair way ahead and we don't usually have long gaps between releases any more. That's a plus for me, of course, because it means I've always got something to write about. I'm rarely stuck for material.

TT: What are you excited for this year?

HE: I've been enjoying what I've heard of Reformat, and their new track has really stoked the flames for me. That kind of heavy, synthy sound pushes a lot of my buttons - I'm an avid gamer and this song in particular would be the perfect theme for an intense boss battle. On a similar note, The Fierce And The Dead have new material this year, and, while I can't reveal too much about that yet, I promise it's well up to the hype. I can't wait for May, when I can finally talk about it properly.

And there's more Shineback to come too. Simon Godfrey is a real wild card in our roster. He's full of curveballs, but they seem to be consistently pretty damn good, and I enjoyed Rise Up Forgotten and Minotaur. The stakes are high, but I'm sure he'll deliver.

TT: Have you struggled with balancing your label commitments with uni work?

HE: I'm actually typing up a history essay with my other hand as we speak. It's pretty intense.

Status Update

It's been a busy week for BEM, with new music videos from both Reformat and The Fierce And The Dead - if you missed those videos, hit the links to watch now! That latter track, 'Truck', will be available on Friday, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, Tonochrome's A Map in Fragments continues to tick down ahead of its release in less than two weeks' time - preorder now to get hold of it as soon as it drops. After the holiday dry season, we're officially back in gear and firing on all cylinders. Brace yourselves.

Review Roundup

Only one review to report this week: Phil Lively at The Progressive Aspect offered us his take on Black Bag Archive Vol. III, and concluded that "the contrast between songs on this album should make for welcome variety". Lovely!

The Trunk 14/1/2018: From the Vaults - Land of Shadows

Welcome back to From the Vaults, the semi-regular feature where we dive back into the BEM archives to revisit some of our older releases. Word on the wind is that, next week, longtime BEM collaborators The Gift are about to start writing some spicy new material, so it's a good time to step back and revisit their second album, one of BEM's first releases: Land of Shadows.

This photo taken from underneath one of those lattice bridges.

The Gift started out way back in the mists of 2006 (has it really been over a decade?) as the brainchild of frontman Mike Morton, who recruited guitarist Leroy James for the project's debut double album Awake and Dreaming. (That link will take you to the 2016 remastered version.) Since then the group has seen a number of departures and arrivals, and its current lineup is much refreshed and up to six members, but, at the time of Land of Shadows, The Gift were primarily a trio: Mike primarily on vocals and keyboards, his son Joseph Morton on drums, and David Lloyd on guitars and bass.

Land of Shadows came out in May 2014, a full seven and a half years after Awake and Dreaming, but numerous interruptions and commitments hadn't kept Mike from working hard on new material, and it shows. Have a listen to this:



If I had to choose one word to describe this album, it'd be "careful", and not in the backhanded sense of being overcautious and unimaginative. The amount of work that's gone into honing and refining these pieces, both lyrically and musically, is evident on every single track, perhaps most of all in the twenty-minute epic 'The Comforting Cold'. But Land of Shadows never feels clinical or over-engineered - the spark of raw emotion is still very much present.

Genre-wise, The Gift are symphonic prog writ large, with movements, layers, and clarity despite the diversity. Both the two long tracks and the handful of shorter ones display a keen sense of purpose and method - this is not kitchen-sink music, and everything that's present is present for a reason. It's a system that works on heavier, rockier songs as well as lighter ones, and helps both fit comfortably together on the album.

Land of Shadows was critically acclaimed, with Progarchives special collaborator tszirmay giving it a comfortable four and a half stars for providing "a new adventure to place under the gilded prog tree". Bryan Morey at Progarchy called it a "true masterpiece" and one of his favourite albums of 2014, and Martin Hutchinson (rest assured, this was before he joined the BEM crew) gave an album he called "tantamount to genius" a glowing writeup and a perfect score!

What have The Gift been up to since then? Well, we released their third album, Why The Sea Is Salt, in October 2016 to another warm reception and very strong sales. And, again, they're about to start work on some exciting new material, so we'll keep you posted on their progress there.

In the meantime, it's a very good time to check out Land of Shadows, because, between our archive discount and the January Sale, it's the cheapest it's ever been at just four English pounds, and that's for a physical copy! Head on over to the webstore to grab yourself a slice of symphonic prog perfection today.

Status Update

Our first release of 2018, A Map in Fragments by new signing Tonochrome, is available to preorder now with one preview track already up and running. It's a very strong first showing from the art-rock quintet and we can't wait to get the rest of their material out to you. As usual, grab 'em while they're hot!

Fractal Mirror have been on the air recently, showcasing some new music from their upcoming fourth album, Close to Vapour. With appearances on ProgCore Radio on Thursday and House Of Prog on Friday, they've had a pretty busy week, and those who caught them on either stream are no doubt excited for the impending preorder and release.

Last but definitely not least, The Fierce And The Dead have released a brand new music video for 'Truck', the lead single from their impending third studio album The Euphoric. The track will be available to buy, and the album ready for preorder, very soon, but you can give the video a watch and a listen right now exclusively on the PROG magazine website.

Review Roundup

Alison Reijman over at Background Magazine gave Murder and Parliament a spin recently, and liked what she heard, praising a successful "scattergun approach" to composition and a skillful transition from vocals to instrumentals.

And, over in France, praise for The Divine Abstract continues, as Profil gives it an 8/10 for offering "a lot of possibilities... you just have to discover them".

The Trunk 7/1/2018: The BEM January Sale

Where the hell have you been?

Cut us some slack, it was Christmas!

Christmas was nearly two weeks ago!

We're only just starting to wake up properly, to be honest.

Well, at least give us some good news to make up for it.

You're in luck! You may have seen this announced on Monday, but we're currently deep in the white-hot burning core of the Bad Elephant Music January Sale!

The Bad Elephant Music January Sale!

Oh yes! The Bad Elephant Music January Sale!

What is the Bad Elephant Music January Sale?

I'm glad you asked.

Right now over at the BEM webstore, and all through the month of January, there's a blanket 20% price cut on dozens of slightly older BEM releases. It's the perfect time to dive into our archives and sample some of the music you might have missed before!

What exactly does the sale cover?

Almost every album released before the end of 2016 (and one EP, which we'll get to in a minute) is discounted in physical form only. That means that albums from 2016 and the second half of 2015 are £8 apiece, and albums from before that, already down to a fiver each, are now just £4, almost exactly the average price of a London pint. And remember, you can only drink a pint once, whereas you can listen to these albums as many times as you like. (I wouldn't recommend drinking the albums, though.)

Can we have a full list of everything that's reduced?

Sure! To reiterate, only the CD versions are discounted - digital editions retain their original price point. You can click on any of the album names below to go directly to the BEM store!

£8 Albums (2016 and late 2015)

• Jack Arthurs - Treasure House
• The Brackish - Liquid of Choice
• Emmett Elvin - Emmettronica 1998-2012
• Emmett Elvin - Assault on the Tyranny of Reason
• The Far Meadow - Given the Impossible
• The Fierce And The Dead - If It Carries On Like This We Are Moving To Morecambe
• The Gift - Awake and Dreaming
• The Gift - Why the Sea is Salt
• Heliopolis - Epic at the Majestic: Live at RoSFest
• Mike Kershaw - What Lies Beneath
• Konchordat - Rise to the Order
• Nine Stones Close - Leaves
• N.y.X - The News
• Matthew Parmenter - All Our Yesterdays
• Mothertongue - Unsongs
• Paradigm Shift - Becoming Aware
• The Rube Goldberg Machine - Fragile Times
• Sphelm - These Roots Know No Boundaries
• Matt Stevens - Archive
• Twice Bitten - Late Cut
• Under A Banner - The Wild Places
• Verbal Delirium - The Imprisoned Words of Fear
• We Are Kin - ...and I know...

£4 Albums (early 2015 and earlier)

• Emmett Elvin - Bloody Marvels
• The Fierce And The Dead - Spooky Action
• The Gift - Land of Shadows
• Simon Godfrey - Motherland
• Jon Hunt (The Artist Formerly Known As jh) - Morning Sun: The Best of jh
• Shineback - Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed
• Tom Slatter - Fit the Fourth
• Trojan Horse - World Turned Upside Down
• We Are Kin - Pandora

The Single £3 EP (turns out there was only one EP on the list)

• The Fierce And The Dead - Magnet

Remember, these albums are also streamable directly from Bandcamp for free, so you can try before you buy. There's never been a better time to look into our back catalogue - why not dive in and have a taste?

Review Roundup

Two new reviews in for Murder and Parliament this week - five stars (out of six) from Uzbekistan's progressor.net, praising an "eclectic and varied production... more than challenging enough", and an impressive writeup from Emma Roebuck at Progradar.

Make sure to join us next week for more from the world of the Elephant!