Elephant Micah
Elephant Micah has logged twenty-some years of folkish singer-songwriting and home-fi record making. People with an ear out for faintly played roots music have taken notice from time to time, and a few have even written it up. This project’s project person is Joe O’Connell, a sometimes academic nerd and onetime Bloomingtonian with a certain flair for adopting the voice of a vulture. In March 2022, O’Connell sang deep catalogue songs at the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro in Madrid, where he got major artistic and morale boosts from Matt O’Connell (percussion, singing) and Kate Long (guitar, singing). The upcoming gig at the Bishop brings this version of Elephant Micah back together for a reprise performance in the U.S.A.
Bloomington, Indiana's Kate Long is the lush and lo-fi Rodeola. Since 2006, Long has quietly released her ambient-leaning folk-rock with a minimalist focus on mood over structure. Built around her halcyon, indelible voice, her new album Arlene examines the transient meaning and often uncomfortable complexity of relationships. Featuring peers Joan Shelley, Nathan Salsburg, Joseph Decosimo (Hiss Golden Messenger), and Joseph and Matthew O'Connell (Elephant Micah), the album gained unsolicited attention from Pitchfork, who hailed it as 'a dizzying depiction of complex, unruly emotion that leaves you feeling it all.' Brooklyn Vegan deemed the album simply 'timeless.'