Ellis Island Sound - The Good Seed

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 25 / 3 / 2007

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Review

Ellis Island Sound originally started off as a side project to Peter Astor and David Sheppard's regular band, the Wisdom of Harry. Ellis Island Sound formed in 1997, have done countless limited edition singles and also remixes for lots of different bands, but they have only started to play live together recently. At a recent gig at 93 Feet East, they had 10 people on stage, including former Hefner front man Darren Hayman, who seems to pop up everywhere I go these days. Ellis Island Sound’s new album is very different to Peter's last project, the reforming of his early 80’s band, the Loft, whom sadly only recorded one comeback 7 inch only single for Static Caravan before splitting up again. ‘The Good Seed’ is a 20 tracker collection of oddities. David plays guitar while Peter mainly plays ukulele. Most of the album consists of short, quirky pieces or loopy pieces of experimental folk, while at other times they break away from this lo-fi sound to do something which is more orchestral. A decent album, but one which is hard to listen to in one session.

Track Listing:-

1 Swords Reversed 1
2 Angels Way
3 Auction Of Promises
4 The Villagers
5 Cuckoo Hill
6 Count The Cars
7 The Plagal Walk
8 Density Ratio
9 Swords Reversed 2
10 Building A Table
11 Dark Lane
12 Unwinding Not Unravelling
13 The Waveney Waltz
14 Hills Of Braithwaite
15 Reeds For Arthur
16 Summoning The Pharoah
17 The Orchid
18 Last Days Of John Train
19 Concertina Theory
20 Starlight Madrigal