The year is 2004, recently shedding my high-school persona and the affiliated music taste that hitched a ride with it. I'm at the local record store (Park Ave CDS when it was actually on Park Avenue) and the clerk on duty was from a local ska band. By this point, he and I have built somewhat of a rapport wherein I felt comfortable enough asking for a music recommendation from him. He enthusiastically obliges and escorts me to these vertical tower listening stations they had in which new/local/staff picks are loaded onto. He queues up The Band of the Name (Apple/Spotify), another local outfit. I’m captivated, consumed, and slightly confused.
What does that anecdote have to do with Elephant Gym? Maybe nothing at all, and maybe everything. In an alternate universe where that fateful day didn’t take place, I can *almost* guarantee this album wouldn’t be an AOTM, let alone on my radar.
Listening to this album conjured a similar reaction. Is it jazz, math rock, pop? To me, it’s all of these things to some degree and more. Taken individually & initially, these songs shouldn’t work together on an album. Stepping back and re listening, I relish in my erroneous ways and enjoy the inexplicable cohesion that kept drawing me back.
Whether it’s this album, or either of their first two LPs, Elephant Gym deserves a spot in your collection.
FURTHER (REQUIRED) LISTENING:
Elephant Gym on Audiotree Live (Full Session)
Elephant Gym - See You Then (Short Documentary)
Elephant Gym - Live at El Cid, LA 3/21/2019
Sorry Canadiens, this LP seems harder to (reasonably) track down (in my searches at least)
Elephant Gym/Dreams (Orange Vinyl) [LP] (1 copy available)
UK Storefronts
Elephant Gym - Dreams Orange Vinyl Edition
Elephant Gym - Dreams - (Vinyl LP) | Rough Trade
Exhaustive Explanation of My Devious Clues:
All of the video game screenshots have some relation to Elysium, which is a venue in Austin, Texas where Elephant Gym played SXSW in 2023. The “reveal” was intended to push toward that with the downward pointing arrow.
The Youtube videos are all songs on the album. They may have been linked through wordplay (“Which Is?” for Witches), synonyms (“Silhouette” for Shadow), or a more involved investigation (Alex Who? was in a group called Dear Humans). For the “reveal”, the back CD cover mimicked the tracklist order.
Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was a direct influence/inspiration for the production of Big Band Species by the Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group, which features Elephant Gym as the live band/musical design. “Dear Humans” being a crossover track from that affiliation.
The quoted replies were intended to point towards a release date by ascending order and by omitting May 11, 2022. The first being made on 03/09/20, second 04/10/21, ________, third 06/12/23.
The green coded clues were all in relation to Shakespeare’s MacBeth. Specifically Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28 with varying uses in “Witches”, the only English sung track on the album. The blurred Wave off Kanagawa was a reference to Gabrielle Zevin’s 2022 book “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.” The Death Stranding image was displaying Journal 22, where Journal 23 was highlighted and contained the above referenced soliloquy. As pointed out by Joe, the Vonnegut short story “Big Trip Up Yonder” title was later revised as “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.”
The coordinates were all underwater museums, with 6 of 7 being given as clues. The last and omitted museum bore likeness to the album cover of “Dreams”, whereas the underwater nature could be linked to their second full length.
All of the named attachments were anagrams of “Elephant Gym Dreams”. As @Skalap pieced together, the first letter of the anagrams when placed in order, nearly spelled out the album and artist. The beginning E & L of elephant were swapped to deceive
The depleted continents via world map is self explanatory and an impromptu set of clues because I was scraping the bottom of the figurative barrel.
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