DATELINE—early 2015. All is wintery and quiet and gorgeous. In late January, legendarily-painstaking folk minimalist Elephant Micah (a.k.a. Joseph O’Connell) takes his usual legendarily-great pains to painstakingly unveil his twelfth new album of painstakingly sparse and gorgeous folk-minimalism. It’s painstakingly titled Where In Our Woods for the Western Vinyl label, who take their own great pains to release it on vinyl and CD.
Then—for LIKE A YEAR after that, nothing nearly as gorgeous or painstaking occurs. (Ironically, it’s kinda interminable).
But THEN… from the depths of that interminable nowhere… Ta-dah! Great pains! And all because TODAY marks the premiere of a brand new video for the album’s majstically dirgy nylon-guitar and pump-organ hymnal “Rare Beliefs,” and all the world rejoices. The song’s narrative tells the tale of “a ‘Bible Bird Man’ from Noblesville, Indiana who trained exotic birds to perform stunning Christian-themed stunts,” and O’Connell crafted the accompanying visuals himself. And you’ll never GUESS WHAT? Dude definitely took-him some… great pains:
I recreated a couple different scenes of my favorite Indiana attractions using paper cut-outs and stop motion photography,” he says. “Exotic birds fly through flaming hoops. A souped up model T does a wheelie and a donut (at the same time). Like the song, I wanted the video to reflect some of the more mysterious elements of American faith and patriotism. Maybe it’s appropriate for an election year.
Ouch! I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty great pains just from thinking about how awesome that all sounds. Check out the clip down below for yourself, and catch Elephant Micah on tour around the U.S. throughout the month of March. (It shouldn’t be too hard to catch him, since he always moves at such a, y’ know, painstakingly majestic pace.)
Elephant Micah tour dates:
03.18.16 - Chicago, IL - Schubas*
03.19.16 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St. Entry*
03.20.16 - Madison, WI - High Noon Saloon*
03.22.16 - Bloomington, IN - The Bishop*
03.23.16 - Nashville, TN - The High Watt*
03.24.16 - Decatur, GA - Eddie’s Attic*
03.25.16 - Asheville, NC - The Mothlight*
03.26.16 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle*
* Mount Moriah
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