Biography
In the closing years of the 2000s, multi-instrumentalist Simon Tong, whose past work included the Verve, Blur, and the Good, the Bad & the Queen, teamed up with guitarist Gawain Erland Cooper and drummer David Nock to launch London folk-rock band Erland & the Carnival. Their earliest efforts centered on fresh neo-psychedelic reworkings of longstanding Scottish and English folk material, drawing cues from revered British folk acts including Pentangle, Fairport Convention, and Steeleye Span. Additional contributors Andy Bruce, Georgia Sands, and Danny Wheeler joined the lineup, which issued its self-titled debut record in 2010. The follow-up, the horror-themed Nightingale, emerged in 2011 after three months of sessions held on HMS President, the World War I anti-submarine ship docked along the River Thames. With Closing Time in 2014, the group moved past the fairy tales, poems, and traditional sources that had shaped its previous releases, favoring instead a set of more personal songs still rooted in chamber folk.
Albums
