Elpmas is an album by the American composer and musician Moondog, released in 1992 via Kopf.[1]
Background and recording
Elpmas was recorded at Academy of St. Martin's in the Streets, a studio in Germany owned by Andi Toma.[1] The album's title is the word "sample" read backwards; it was the first time Moondog used sampling in his music.[2]
Reception
Der Spiegel wrote that the music on Elpmas lies between folk music and minimal music and called it pleasant.[2] "Blue" Gene Tyranny of AllMusic described it as a "wonderful CD built from environmental sounds, gently rocking marimbas, lovely counterpoint for winds, foot-taping rhythms, and sweetly sung wisdom from a chorus".[3] Moondog's biographer Robert Scotto called it "the strangest of his German productions and in many ways the most like his earliest New York albums".[1] He wrote that it primarily appealed to those who appreciated Moondog's eclectic side and propensity to move his music into new phases and that it confused those who expected a unified expression. He called it "a little too much over the edge perhaps".[1]
