Erland And The Carnival

Erland and the Carnival are a British folk rock band, formed in London, England by multi instrumentalist Simon Tong (formerly of The Verve / Blur / The Good, the Bad & the Queen), Orcadian folk guitarist and singer Gawain Erland Cooper and Drummer/Engineer David Nock (The Orb / The Cult / The Fireman).

Erland and the Carnival are best known for their contemporary arrangements of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, including Tramps and Hawkers, Was You Ever See and Love Is a Killing Thing collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The band's debut album was recorded at Damon Albarn's Studio 13 and released January 2010.

Band members

Simon Tong - Guitar, Harmonium, Zither, VocalsErland Cooper - Guitar, VocalsDavid Nock - Drums, Percussion, Vocals, KeyboardsAndy Bruce - SynthesizersDanny Wheeler - Bass guitar

History

Spending most of the past two years studying Bert Jansch and Davey Graham, sourcing old British songs from the Vaughan Williams museum near where he lives and developing his own writing skills- Erland Cooper was introduced to Simon Tong and David Nock by producer friend Youth.After Erland recorded a track Coming Home with Nock for Tong and Youth's Butterfly recordings compilation- What the folk vol 2- the three of them began writing and playing together around London. Following in the path of Pentangle, The Trees and early Fairport they decided to form their group entitled Erland & The Carnival.Inspired by Daniel Johnston's masterpiece- Hello How Are You?- (Where Daniel originally re-recorded personally each of his albums to meet demand because his tape to tape machine was broken!!)- Erland and the Carnival released a limited edition debut e.p in September 2008 each cd containing different painstakingly recorded versions of songs unique to each copy. The resulting recording session can be viewed on YouTube.

WEBSITE: http://erlandandthecarnival.com/

MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/carnival