Elysian Fields came out of New York’s legendary Knitting Factory, a hotbed of musical exploration and genre mixing and a hub of the vibrant 1990s downtown scene. Drawn together by a mutual love of The Beatles, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Captain Beefheart, Ravi Shankar, Frédéric Chopin and Olivier Messiaen, founders Jennifer Charles and Oren Bloedow had traveled parallel paths in Washington, D.C. and New York until a scholarship to New York University’s drama department drew Jennifer to New York. Both had been to see the Bad Brains and Lounge Lizards (for whom Oren would play bass in the early ’90s), both worshiped Woody Allen and Fellini, both went to alternative high schools and both had become independent at an early age.

Echoes of all of these artists can be heard on Elysian Fields records, starting in 1996 with the Radioactive/Universal releases Elysian Fields and Bleed Your Cedar, and continuing through their Jetset, Play it Again Sam, Naive, Diluvian and Vicious Circle releases. Other influences crept in over the albums, however, as Oren’s writing palette expanded to include piano and as both of their folk/world music collections grew. But their sound, as Nick Kent wrote, is “still unique — as sensual as a sleepwalker’s wet dream,” and influences are synthesized smoothly into their private language. For almost two decades they have been quietly putting out spellbinding records.