Full Time Hobby [2010]
Erland and the Carnival are a British 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.
The album draws on influences as wide as Vaughan Williams, Joe Meek, William Blake, Ennio Morricone, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank (from whose song ‘my name is carnival’ they took they’re name). It finds the band experimenting with production and recording techniques, finding they’re own rhythms and melodies, using lyrics from obscure texts; political speeches, modern newspaper articles, early 20th century novels, Leonard Cohen poems and reworking old traditional British folk songs..see The Coral, Badly Drawn Boy, Mull Historical Society.
