JAMES ELKINGTON Ever-Roving Eye PARADISE OF BACHELORS
DEEP in Betjeman’s Metro-land lies the village of Chorleywood, a well-heeled Chiltern retreat on the edge of the Orbital interzone. It’s where James Elkington spent his younger years; the guitarist even pays tribute to one of its streets, Rendlesham Way, in the name of the lone instrumental, as rolling as those chalk ridges, on his second solo album, Ever-Roving Eye.
“Chorleywood is a small town surrounded by woods,” Elkington tells Uncut, “with a high density of pubs. Rendlesham Way’s a steep, treacherous hill that we had to climb as teenagers to get to our favourite of those…”
It’s common for musicians to look backlast year), he found himself working on some “doodles” that became songs and finally 2017’s , his first record under his own name. It introduced a new acoustic, folky mode, recalling Nick Drake on the tumbling opener, “Make It Up”, Michael Chapman on the sparky country-blues of “Grief Is Not Coming For You” and Greenwich Village folk on the strummed “Sister Of Mine”. It was a fine introduction, but the closing, Roy Harper-esque “Any Afternoon”, its picked acoustics drifting across a bed of Ebow drone and Mellotron, suggested that Elkington was capable of more.
