#ever-roving eye

[rastronomicals]

9:47 AM EDT July 22, 2024:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[rastronomicals]

7:01 PM EDT April 23, 2024:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[rastronomicals]

11:23 AM EDT March 11, 2024:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[rastronomicals]

1:56 PM EST January 18, 2024:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[rastronomicals]

1:26 PM EST December 6, 2022:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[rastronomicals]

12:18 AM EDT March 28, 2022:

James Elkington - "Ever-Roving Eye" From the album Mojo 2020: Music For Homes (May 15, 2020)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Free CD that's not really ambient, though its title and art would suggest just such a thing, given away with the July 2020 issue of Mojo

File under: Coronavirus Music

[dustedmagazine]

James Elkington — Ever-Roving Eye (Paradise of Bachelors)

Photo by Timothy Musho

Ever-Roving Eye by James Elkington

If you’re making a record, you could do far worse than to have James Elkington at your side as you go through the process. British-born and Chicago-based, he’s a consummate facilitator who can tell you what your songs need in order to be their best, artfully arrange them and then play a lot of what needs to be played on them. Like a lot of people with in-demand talents, he’s very busy. He’s produced Joan Shelley and Nap Eyes, arranged strings for Steve Gunn and Itasca, drummed for Brokeback, and played a load of guitars and other instruments for Jon Langford, Eleventh Dream Day, Laetitia Sadier, Richard Thompson, Jeff Tweedy, and many, many more. He’s also made a pair of ingratiating acoustic instrumental records with fellow guitarist, Nathan Salsburg. Finally, Elkington has been writing and singing songs since the turn of the century with the Zincs, Horses Ha (with Janet Bean), and, since 2017, on a couple LPs of his own.

Ever-Roving Eye is Elkington’s second solo album. At its core is the same baritone crooning and fleet, Davey Graham-derived finger picking that made his first LP, Wintres Woma, so appealing. He ushers in “Nowhere Time,” the first song, with some radiant harmonics and an intricate, winding solo, but then a full band drives right in through the space opened by those first gestures. With Nick Macri, his bassist of choice ever since the Zincs first hit the road, and drummer Spencer Tweedy at his back, Elkington’s voice glides like it is being aloft borne by perfectly situated updrafts. The music’s motion and grace contrasts markedly with the song’s lyric, which wrestles with stubborn procrastination. It’s a neat trick to mix dilemma and resolution into the same bottle, and throughout the album the sound of Elkington’s music comes across like a tonic for what’s on his mind. Each song comes fleshed out with additional instrumentation, which enhances Elkington’s sweet and sour recipe. The weave of sunny picking patterns, jaunty kick drum, and sparely applied steel guitar and Leslie speaker-treated vocal accents on “Sleeping Me Awake” could set you skipping, oblivious to the fact that the song is about sleep-stymying anxiety.  

Apprehension, in fact, is the album’s theme. When Elkington’s eye roves, it isn’t looking for action, but for the next bit of trouble. The stuff on his mind is pretty universal; if he isn’t fretting because time’s running out and the work’s not done, he’s regretting some promises he made and broke along the way. But if his mind is in a stir, the music that frames his musings feels unfailingly effortless. More than ever before, he’s put those same skills that enable him to make other people’s music sound so good at the service of his own songs.

Bill Meyer