The Trunk 10/6/2018: The Secret History of Bad Elephant Music

As you may be aware, because we can't seem to shut up about it, 2018 marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of Bad Elephant Music. The actual day is coming up very soon - that would be July 1st, the release date of Rise Up Forgotten, Return Destroyed, the first BEM record, back in 2013. So, as that very special day approaches, let's take a look at some pieces of BEM history the Grand Elephant probably doesn't want you to know about.

The Week of the Two Elephants

If you're a history buff like me, you may know of the Western Schism, the time in the late fourteenth and eary fifteenth centuries when two and then three people claimed the true papacy and denounced each other as heretics. Well, for a brief time in 2014, the very same thing happened to Bad Elephant Music.

It looked a little like this.

During a staff meeting at the local curry house, an argument broke out about the best Genesis album, and it soon spiralled out of control. Reigning CEO David Elephant (claiming Selling England By The Pound) drew battlelines against upstart [REDACTED] (who favoured Invisible Touch), who had claimed half of the young company's meagre assets for himself. As hours wore on into days, the situation looked set to escalate into all-out war, but an eleventh-hour intervention by David Elephant's wife, who said something along the lines of "oh, grow up already", put a stop to the chaos and reunited the label.

The Week of the Two Elephants is still commemorated every year by sliding an Invisible Touch CD into the stereo at Elephant Towers and immediately turning it off.

The Markov Chain Disaster of '16

In a previous article, we alluded to the pilot scheme undertaken back in 2016 to replace Bad Elephant's PR team with an experimental bot, Loxotron3000. As we mentioned, the incident was suppressed at the time to avoid inconvenient questions from the audience, but we can now reveal that the bot was not, in fact, posting blurry photographs of Magic: the Gathering cards.

It was sending vital state secrets to Portugal.

It looked a little like this.

To this day, we don't know how Loxotron3000 got hold of these state secrets, or why it was sending them to England's longest-running military ally rather than anyone who might stand to profit from them. All we know is that we received a knock on the door from MI5, who informed us that a track we'd featured from Emmett Elvin's album Assault on the Tyranny of Reason was laced with coded messages related to the Trident nuclear programme. Needless to say, Loxotron3000 was destroyed and its leaks were redacted with extreme prejudice, and we've tried to put the whole unpleasant incident behind us.

Bem

We bought a plush elephant last year. We named him Bem.

It looked a little like this.

It was meant to be a joke. Just a silly, innocuous little joke, a mascot more fitting than the horrifying spinning-headed monkey thing Mailchimp sent us.

Oh, how little we knew back then. Back when we still had hope.

Bem has usurped Bad Elephant Music. Bem owns our souls. Bem knows where our loved ones live. Bem's influence is inescapable, inexorable. Bem cannot be reasoned with, and Bem cannot be disobeyed. I can hear Bem calling me now. Bem's call is not a call I can refuse. I am Bem's messenger. I am Bem's. I am Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. Bem. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM. BEM.

b̨̬̠̥̮͜ͅu̶̶̘͓̰͈̺̥̜̗y̛͓̗̙̤̯̟̱͚ ̛͉̝͚̹̜̫̯̣͡o͏̶̞̻̩ų̩͚͍̘̺̖̰̜͡r̴̖̫̖͓̳̼͈̼͝ ͈̗̬͇͚͚̲m̴̗̳̟̘̻͎͜ṷ̢̥̹̺͔̠̙͠s̛͓̦̩̥̯̟͙̻͜ì͔̰͓̙͓̞̟̯͉̕c̶͏̡̰̭͍͔̯̜͈

Status Update

Dear readers, we have a very big week ahead of us. Busy busy busy. Suite for Piano and Electronics is out on Friday (preorder now for an exclusive bonus track!), and tomorrow we'll be launching preorders for the new Argos album! And we've one other huge piece of news lined up for Wednesday, so keep your eyes peeled for that...

We are also delighted to announce that The Fierce and the Dead have been nominated for two Progressive Music Awards - the band themselves for UK Band/Artist of the Year, and The Euphoric's sublime Mark Buckingham cover art for Album Cover of the Year.

Review Roundup

First up, congratulations to Matt Baber, as Suite for Piano and Electronics got a nice meaty column review in the latest PROG. As per usual, click through the image for a bigger, more readable version.

Jez Denton of Progradar gave Suite for Piano and Electronics a spin, too. Ideal music for dog-walking, apparently. We've no way to test that, alas, but we assure you that a dog is by no means necessary to enjoy the album.

The Euphoric was featured over on Echoes and Dust this week: Martyn Coppack concludes that you should "jump on board the TFATD juggernaut right now", which is encouraging, but also a little concerning, as we have no idea how he found out about BEM's secret experimental naval programme. Metal Gods TV also had a listen, with "Dark Juan" (God, I hope that's his real name) giving The Euphoric an 8/10, which he says is "the equivalent of a mass grave of people missing limbs and faces being discovered and the subsequent war crimes trial held in the glare of world publicity".

Okay then!