Elvis Perkins' debut album, Ash Wednesday, feels both lived in and lived through. He combines emotional intimacy with a warm-hearted studio sound that recalls Nick Drake and Astral Weeks-era Van Morrison. Perkins deliberately circumvented the digital route, making demos at home before gathering a small group of fellow players and friends to cut these tracks to analog tape in a Burbank studio and at a Victorian house in L.A. They helped Perkins flesh out material in which he transforms the circumstances of his life into compelling, dream-like songs with lyrics that teeter between the specific and the surreal.

For the last year and a half, Perkins has been doing club dates around the country to increasing acclaim; touring with such acts as Okkervil River, Dr. Dog, Matt Costa and the Pernice Brothers; appearing at events like Seattle's Sasquatch Festival, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits; and performing on radio stations like Seattle, Washington's influential KEXP and L.A.'s KXLU.

As Perkins became more visible with his three-piece band--bassist Brigham Brough, keyboardist/guitarist Wyndham Boylan-Garnett, and drummer Nicholas Kinsey, collectively known as Elvis Perkins in Dearland--his reputation has grown, along with the size of his audience. The enthusiasm of online bloggers has helped. After seeing him at the Rockwood Music Hall on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the folks at Stereogum declared, "We were sold on the spot - fuss-worthy folkies just don't come easy...Double bass, harmonica and strings color these lyrical laments, but the man's easy melodicism is the real charm."