VIDEO: Elf Power Release Video For 'Soft Trash' From 'Artificial Countrysides'

Today, the Athens, GA-based psychedelic folk band Elf Power released "Soft Trash," the fourth song to be released from their forthcoming album Artificial Countrysides that will be released on July 15 via Yep Roc Records.

FLOOD Magazine shared the "hazy and subtly psychedelic" official video and said, "Elf Power are far from running out of ideas nearly 30 years into their time together as a psych-folk unit." The band will kick off their summer tour on July 13 in Milwaukee, WI and will make stops in Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta and more. Find a full list of tour dates below or here.

"'Soft Trash' originated from recording a samba drum machine beat from a 1970s Baldwin Fun Machine organ, an instrument renowned for its cool and bizarre sounding drum machine keyboard sounds," explains Elf Power's Andrew Rieger. "I fell in love with this organ/drum machine in the 1990s when our friends in the band Macha (featuring Josh McKay, later of Deerhunter) used it a lot on several of their great albums. I finally acquired a Fun Machine when we started working on our latest album Artificial Countrysides, and it made it onto several of the songs on the album. On 'Soft Trash,' I liked the beat so much that I recorded it first and then wrote the chords, melody and lyrics around the drum machine beat, and then our drummer Peter Alvanos doubled the drum machine on real drums, making a nice mix or organic and artificial elements, which became a recurring theme on many of the songs on the album."

"Soft Trash" follows the release of the official video for the album's title track "Artificial Countrysides," "Undigested Parts" and "The Gas Inside The Tank," which was covered by Stereogum, Under The Radar and BrooklynVegan, who said "It finds their unique psychedelic pop/indie rock fusion sounding as great as ever."

Rieger and his Elf Power bandmates - drummer Peter Alvanos and guitarist Dave Wrathgabar, with contributions from keyboard player Laura Carter - have created some of the band's most expansive musical terrain yet. Along with a blend of fuzz-tone electric and layered acoustic guitars, Moog keyboards and lively drums, the group experimented with the sounds of marimba, Mellotron, harpsichord, synth bass and distorted drum machine loops, taking a try-it-and-see approach to recording in the studio.

Artificial Countrysides is Elf Power's 14th album across their almost 30 year career. The collection 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. "That title also describes the songwriting process, of world-building or creating an artificial landscape within a song," explains Rieger.

Watch the new music video here:

Tour Dates

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

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