Fans of Sleeping in the Aviary have two new things to look forward to this autumn, barely six months after the group released its debut album Oh, This Old Thing?. On Tuesday, November 6, their Madison-based label Science of Sound is releasing the debut solo album by Elliott Kozel, the band's lead singer. Titled She Is So Beautuful/She Is So Blonde, it's an 11-track collection of lo-fi dreamtime pop he has recorded at home over the last four years.
"This is hardly a typical singer-songwriter affair," writes Tom Laskin in a review for Isthmus. "For the most part, Kozel mumbles and keens in middle space as glockenspiel, harmonica and what sounds like echoed slide guitar tinkle and whirr around him. The result is psychedelia for people who can't stand paisley and lava lamps or references to walls dripping with candy-coated sunshine."
More recently, though, the group has spent a little time in front of a video camera, messing around and shooting a pair of clips presented as "commercials" for the all-night diner Denny's and Scotch brand masking tape. They were created one autumn morning, Kozel explains, by his brother Samuel Kozel behind the camera. "The liquid poured was in fact not gravy, but a combination of imitation maple syrup, flour, milk, and Clorox bleach," explains SitA's singer. "The corn poured onto the mannequin head was supposed to be made into some kind of soup with the addition of one can of milk. We didn't clean up right away."
Both of these spots follow below, starting with the first for Denny's.
