Watch: Great Elk's Unveils New Music Video for 'Everything Falls Apart'

Great Elk just released their new video for "Everything Falls Apart". Check it out below!

Great Elk began in 2008 when Paul Basile, who had just returned to his native New York after working as a sled dog handler in rural Alaska, enlisted guitarist Patrick Hay to help give voice to a stockpile of folk songs. Now a five-piece outfit named after an extinct animal found in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, they have a sound characterized by precise, driving rhythms, eerie synth pads and the lonesome wail of slide guitar enveloping Basile's gruff, world-weary vocals. Believing that slow songs are best played loud and that a whisper is as powerful as a shout, they "display the control and restraint of a band with deep chemistry." [The New Yorker]

In 2010 keyboardist Bryan Trenis, bassist Tommy Harron and drummer Adam Christgau joined the fold and GreatElk began a steady stream of touring up and down the East and West Coasts while writing new material that would form their debut LP, Autogeography. Produced by D. James Goodwin and recorded at the Isokon in Woodstock, NY,Autogeography showcased a confident, dynamic sound that was forged on the road and polished in the studio.

Shortly after the release of Autogeography in 2012, drummer Bryan Bisordi joined the ranks as Christgau moved to Los Angeles. Basile relocated with his wife and cat to a Silver Streak camper trailer on a Christmas tree farm outside of Eugene, Oregon while the rest of the band remained in Brooklyn. The band continued touring extensively, adding Germany, Switzerland and Alaska to the list, and Basile continued touring and recording as a solo artist, releasing an EP of acoustic material. During this time as a newly bicoastal band, they developed a songwriting process involving trading musical fragments captured in their respective home studios and trying out these new ideas on the road. As a result, songs for a second LP slowly crystallized.

Titled Star Stuff in a nod to Carl Sagan and recorded over eighteen months at the Isokon in Woodstock and in Basile's Oregon home, the record features a cover photo of a dilapidated igloo hotel taken by Bisordi during the band's tour of Alaska. Star Stuff finds Great Elk keeping the folk-based cadences of Basile's lyrics as a bedrock but replacing many of the Americana trimmings of their previous work with textures that are at times dense, jagged and even futuristic. From the pummeling opening chords of "Dark Mountain" to the impressionistic eulogy "A Clouded Head," the record captures the sound of a band that is unafraid to cover a vast amount of ground.

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