By Order Of The Moose

Description

Welsh psych-pop band El Goodo return with their long, long awaited third album By Order Of The Moose, due out on Cian Ciarans (Super Furry Animals) Strangetown Records. Recorded over the course of 8 years in an old derelict cinema in their home village of Resolven, the album is a continuation of where the band left off in 2009 with their previous effort Coyote. Wielding the wide open spaces of spaghetti westerns with the close melodic harmonies of girl groups and the good humour of Nuggets inspired garage rocknroll, El Goodo takes you on a trip through their fascination with 60s music.

Comprised of brothers Elliott (drums, percussion) and Jason Jones (guitar, vocals), Pixy Jones (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Lewie Sewers (guitar), Matthew Young (keyboards) and Andrew Cann (bass), El Goodo (named after a Big Star song) are a band enthralled by the past. They recorded the album on a 16-track with a small collection of faulty equipment, creating a collection of melodic pop songs, embellished with strings, brass, sitars, harmonicas, xylophones and vocal harmonies (and then seemingly covered it all with dust), that youd expect to find on some forgotten 60s record that someone has stumbled upon in their attic.
Elliott saw the words Loyal Order Of Moose carved into stone on the side of a building in Neath and they all liked the sound of it for the album title. They changed it slightly to By Order Of The Moose. As Pixy explains; Ive always thought of it as The Moose is some evil guy who wears a moose head hat and controls peoples minds, making them do evil things. In reality though it means nothing, we just liked the way it sounded. Jason, who made the intricate cover illustration, seems to have interpreted the title to be more of a circus, depicting a Wild West ringmaster, wild animals and acrobats.

From the first recording in November 2008 with the track When, the album took eight years to complete. Initially thinking it would only take them a few months, they set out to record at The Music Box in Cardiff. Two years later they decamped back to their village, to the Resolven Miners Welfare Hall.
The first single It Makes Me Wonder is their interpretation of a 60s girl group song. Pixy describes bringing the song to the band; On the demo I sampled the drums intro of Be My Baby by the Ronettes. Matty commented that the drums sounded good, how did I get that sound? I told him that I played it in the kitchen on various saucepans and he believed me.

The similarly titled opening track Sit & Wonder was an attempt to do something like Zager & Evans In The Year 2525, but it didnt turn out like that. The lyrics were based on war films like Come And See, Ivans Childhood and Red Dawn. So It Goes was meant to be like a Marty Robbins cowboy song but ended up being more like a Nuggets track. Susan and Bill is a touching tribute to his parents.