• News

• All

May 04, 2022 By Mark Redfern Photography by Jason Thrasher

Elf Power are releasing their first new album in five years, Artificial Countrysides, on July 15 via Yep Roc. Now they have shared the album’s title track, via a video. Dickie Cox directed the video, which features images of landscapes both urban and rural. Watch the “Artificial Countrysides” video below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

In a press release, singer/multi-instrumentalist Andrew Rieger had this to say: “The title track lyrically addresses the songwriting process, and the creation of miniature worlds within songs, propelled by a frantically fingerpicked acoustic guitar line that imagines what acoustic guitar virtuoso John Fahey might sound like if he played with a rock band.”

Artificial Countrysides includes “The Gas Inside the Tank,” a new song the band shared in February. When the album was announced in April they shared its second single, “Undigested Parts.”

The album is the band’s 14th and the follow-up to 2017’s Twitching in Time. As welll as Rieger, Artificial Countrysides features contributions from drummer Peter Alvanos, guitarist Dave Wrathgabar, and keyboard player Laura Carter.

“I like the challenge of approaching it as a trial-and-error process, so we can spend more time and see what works and what doesn’t,” Rieger said of recording the album in a press release. “We build the songs as we’re coming up with them, instead of rehearsing it to death and then recording it. I’ve always felt like that makes for more interesting music for us.”

The press release said Artificial Countrysides “centers around the gray zones where the natural world collides with the creeping encroachment of the digital realm, where the balance between real and simulated can shift from one minute to the next.”

Rieger further explained: “That title also describes the songwriting process, of world-building or creating an artificial landscape within a song.”

Elf Power Tour Dates with E.R. Jurken:

7/13: Milwaukee, WI - Shank Hall
7/14: Chicago, IL - Schubas Tavern
7/15: Louisville, KY - Portland Creative Compound
7/16: Detroit, MI - El Club
7/17: Cincinnati, OH - MOTR Pub
7/18: Columbus, OH - Natalie’s Grandview
7/19: Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe
7/20: Millersville, PA - Phantom Power
7/21: Somerville, MA - Crystal Ballroom
7/22: Providence, RI - Columbus Theatre
7/23: New York, NY - LPR
7/24: Hamden, CT - Space Ballroom
7/25: Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s
7/26: Washington, D.C. - Black Cat
7/27: Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle (Back Room)
7/28: Columbia, SC - New Brookland Tavern
7/29: Atlanta, GA - 529
7/30: Athens, GA - 40 Watt

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.