Sky Swimming [CD]

Amelia Rivas and Christian Pinchbeck don't just sing about feverish, frayed and fractured romances " in the three years since forming Elephant, they've been living one. Its fitting that Sky Swimming, their debut full length release is a seductive, night time delight of an album. After all, it was in the twilight hours of a May morning three years ago that Pontefract native Amelia Rivas and Bristolian Christian Pinchbeck met at a house party and in alcohol-soaked all-nighter sessions that Sky Swimming was written. A fibrous collection of songs about relationships " their own included, which broke down during the making of the album " hazy memories, twisted dreams, the metaphysical bleeding in to the physical - Sky Swimming all trilling keyboards, swooping melodies, broken hip hop beats, looped strings and Amelias uniquely curvy vocals " that makes you want to clamp your headphones tighter on your ears, letting you swim in its every detail and emotion. Influenced by everything from Toro Y Moi to composer Angelo Badalamenti, Everything But The Girl to rap originators Arrested Development and Joe Meeks productions, its an intensely varied listen. The first time we worked together, I went round to his house and didnt leave for 3 days. I barely knew him, Amelia remembers. She turned up with some 10 Casio she bought from a charity shop in France and the whole demo EP was made on that, recalls Christian. Elephant have grown beyond their lo-fi roots since then, with Andy Dragazis being drafted in on co-production duties, while retaining the emotional rawness of those early songs. Tracks vary from psyche-delving ballads about growing up - Torn Tongues and Skyscraper (I want to understand whats wrong with my brain, Rivas laughs), to the thrilling pop of Elusive Youth, a eulogy to a friend who wears a city crown, to the everyday trials of being young and poor in London (see Ants about Amelias crumbling Tooting bedsit and TV Dinner, a paean to rubbish telly and cheap booze) and