Today, London-based songwriter Elanor Moss releases her debut album, The Knife, The Needle and unveils the video for focus track “Secrets of the Universe.” Listen to the album wherever you stream music, and purchase your copy of The Knife, The Needle on CD or Clear Purple Wave Peak Vinyl from the US or UK Merge store, or Elanor Moss' Bandcamp page.

The Knife, The Needle concerns itself with the way relationships between people are transformed, complicated, and troubled by love. It’s devastating work, a feat of tight lyrical construction that is at once patient and vulnerable, opulently rendered and keenly felt, as on “Secrets of the Universe.” Moss says “Secrets of the Universe” is “a song marking the beginning of a relationship and how it can shift and move things in you, quietly showing you things about yourself you didn’t know before. Helping you see yourself differently.”

Across the nine songs that make up The Knife, The Needle, Elanor Moss renders joy and pain in exquisite peals of psych-folk, her darkly-dreamed vignettes offering, if not catharsis, an understanding of the complexity of the journey towards it — healing as a process, rather than an object one obtains. Remarkably, The Knife, The Needle emerged from a place of restraint, with Moss — staying in a cabin near her parent’s house in the Scottish highlands after initially recording an entirely different version of the album in New York City (“a bit rollocking,” she notes) — feeling the pangs of the album she hadn’t recorded — “quieter, weirder, more English.” 

Rerecording with a new ensemble and producer/engineer Pete Miles was a risk, but setting aside an already completed project was worth it. In the quieter, weirder, more English sound manifested here, Moss captures something fleeting, ephemeral, and honest about the moments in which love, for good or ill, irrevocably changes someone. Both the knife and the needle named in the album’s title are capable of drawing blood, but illuminated by her voice and guitar, what bleeds out from these songs is nothing short of poetry.

Elanor Moss will celebrate the release of The Knife, The Needle with a short run supporting of UK in-stores, beginning tonight at Rough Trade's Denmark St. location. A full band tour of the UK and US follows in October. Tickets for all dates are on sale now. 

Elanor Moss on tour: 
Aug 21 London, UK – Rough Trade Denmark St. (In-store)
Aug 22 Oxford, UK – Truck (In-store)
Aug 25 Canterbury, UK – Vinylstore Jr (In-store)
Aug 29 Little Mongeham, UK – Smuggler's Festival
Oct 01 Glasgow UK – The Poetry Club
Oct 02 Leeds, UK – The Attic
Oct 03 Manchester, UK – Low Four Studio
Oct 04 Stroud, UK – The Prince Albert
Oct 06 Birmingham, UK – Hare & Hounds
Oct 07 Bristol, UK – The Jam Jar
Oct 08 Cardiff, UK – Chapter Arts Centre
Oct 09 Oxford, UK – Common Ground
Oct 10 Ashburton, UK – Field System
Oct 11 Brighton, UK – The Folklore Rooms
Oct 19 New York,NY – Nightclub 101
Oct 21 Washington, DC – Pie Shop
Oct 23 Harrisonburg, VA – Sage Bird
Oct 24 Durham, NC – The Pinhook
Oct 25 Richmond, VA – Spacebomb Studio
Oct 27 Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Small's Funhouse
Oct 29 Detroit, MI – Moondog Cafe
Nov 01 Chicago, IL – Tack Room
Nov 04 Bloomington, IN – The Bishop
Nov 13 Seattle, WA – Ballard Homestead
Nov 14 Portland, OR – Turn Turn Turn
Nov 16 San Francisco, CA – 4 Star Theater
Nov 17 Los Angeles, CA – Moroccan Lounge
Dec 03 London, UK – Cecil Sharp House