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ELY, THE BAND FROM THE NORTH WEST OF ENGLAND Ely is a small band of musicians and friends born out of their various secondary school and college bands. They grew up living in the rural (and rather sleepy) Rossendale Valley in the North West of England. They are closely linked with Ont Records , their homegrown independant label which releases all Ely recordings, as well as various 'sideprojects' dreamed up by the bandmembers. Band Members The core of the group is made up of:
However, Ely pride themselves on being unpredictable, and regularly swap instruments with each song, or sometimes right in the middle of songs. In this sense, they all take turns playing all the above instruments, and frequently augment this sound with any one of: Piano, Organ, Horns, Theremin, Samplers, Traditionally Bowed Guitars and Ebows, Tuned Percussion, Bells, Tuned Glasses, Synths, and other assorted paraphernalia, musical and non-musical. Influences Ely are typically very eclectic, and thus hard to pin down for influences. Certainly their style owes a lot to Post Rock bands, such as Mogwai , Sigur Ros , Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Explosions In The Sky , but there is no denying the heavy influence of Electronica ranging from the warped sounds of Aphex Twin , Squarepusher and Schneider TM to the relaxed soundscapes of Aoki Takamasa . Leftfield Hip-Hop such as Clouddead and DJ Shadow is also a strong influence. Despite these rather obscure influences, Ely tend to make a lot of effort fitting these styles in with more traditional songwriting structures, which can be at least partly attributed to the similar efforts (with very different results) of bands such as Radiohead , And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Clinic . As a result, each 'song' often involves many different shifts of mood, tempo, style and time signature, often evoking the Math-Rock - to use a dirty word - of bands such as Tool , Oxes and Tortoise . These bands are given as a reference point for the styles employed by Ely, and is by no means an exhaustive list of their biggest influences. Live In performance, they sometimes appear as their core, but often friends join them to assist with the unusal instrumentation. Occasionally they appear under their pseudonym The Molloys (see below), which usually dentoes a more relaxed performance, often featuring a covers-only set. History Ely was born out of the remnants of several bands, particularly Myopic , Winston and The Molloys (aka The Dave Molloy Tribute Band Presents...It Seemed like a Good Idea at the Time, but Now We're Havin Second Thoughts"). The core of Ely first played together for an A level performance, then went their separate ways, as Kennedy, Bishop and Marsh went to University to study Music Technology, and Isherwood stayed behind for his second year of college. The three soon dropped out of University, returned home and started making home recordings using what equipment they had aquired or bought with their student loans. Soon they had a plethora of recordings, of wildly varied styles. The band quickly decided that certain of their recordings were worthy of becoming 'Ely' songs, and others just didnt fit it. A plan was made to start an independant record label to release all their recordings, some under the name of Ely, and some under various other names for their 'side projects' e.g. Cossack , Das Bish-Hop and PresumingKenni . The result was Ont Records . Ely began to gig regularly, and released their first EP "Tim" at the beginning of 2005. Quick on its heals came the first side-project album, Das Bish-Hop Exploring The Empty Empire . The EP sold very well considering the total lack of promotion (apart, of course, from word of mouth). As the band gigged more, they met a few more 'unsigned' bands from their local area, and began to try to persuade them to record with Ont Records. The DIY approach had given them a few ideas, which led them to writing the list of principles governing the way Ont Records conducts business. The introduction of these principles soon led to a few bands agreeing to record with Ont Records, the first of which "The Only True Currency in this Bankrupt World" by Semiotic was released at the beginning of 2006. In March of 2006, Ely completed work on their first album "Hug". It is due to be released this summer. Ely continue to tour and look for new bands to take under their wing. Their dream is to raise the reputation of Ont Records, and its not-for-profit ethos (bands take all profits after costs) to be able to compete with the major labels without having to offer massive (and unjustifiable) advances on record sales. They are also rumoured to be working on a Television comedy series, loosely based on their lives so far. DISCOGRAPHY
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