James Elkington is about to drop the motherlode on us once again. The Chicago guitarist, composer, and producer — who has worked with Jeff Tweedy, Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day, Richard Thompson, Laetitia Sadier, Michael Chapman, Steve Gunn, Joan Shelley, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Brokeback, and more — is following 2023's instrumental double album Me Neither with another two-disc set of short-form guitar instrumentals called Pastel De Nada. The last six tracks are streaming now.
Elkington offered this interpretation of the new work:
If Me Neither was like drawing an abstract map of a place, Pastel De Nada was more like actually going to that place. On the first record I felt like I'd only scratched the surface of a new methodology, and I was excited to keep exploring. I thought I’d be able to pick up right where I left off when I started the second but, as it turned out, it wasn’t that easy. Me Neither had been written and recorded without any expectations of having an audience; everything was unfiltered and off the cuff.With Pastel De Nada I had to work harder to get back into the same headspace but, once I did, it started to have a depth and direction of its own.
Below, check out "Very Berk Squad" (which also has a music video), "Everybody's Colleyland," "The Caves At Aurangabad," "All Cats Are Bored," "Daft Zenith: Nought," and "Night-Felt."
Pastel De Nada is out 3/28 on No Quarter. Pre-order it here.
