Conscientious Objector by Elizabeth Devlin

Previously only available in Europe; CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, a six song EP, is now available as a digital download, or, a poster+digital download. Please have a listen and support independent musicians and music! The first two listens are FREE!

Performer and songwriter Elizabeth Devlin is pleased to present her second EP and fifth release, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, as the soundtrack for the COVID years, while reflecting on themes of isolation, love lost and gained, socio-political unrest and global struggle. “This may seem gloomy but the message here is one of hope; we embrace what is, and what does not kill us, this will make us stronger. This album is an invocation of hope, honesty, strength and perseverance.”

TANGO INCUBUS, the opening track, sets an ominous stage for the seduction macabre. Devlin layers multiple tracks of Fender Rhodes, Autoharp and sultry vocals. This is accompanied by an accordion solo, written by Devlin, for Susan Hwang (The Bushwick Book Club, Lusterlit and The Debutante Hour). Tango Incubus speaks to “possession, dance, ghostly rapture and submission to sound.” What happens when, “the body let’s go; when physical and emotional existence transcends mortality and lives forever within the music.” Devlin wrote this song, one night, after attending a popular, nomadic NYC dance party, THE GET DOWN. “It is strange to think of it now, like a dream, to be in a crowded room, sweating and screaming and pressed up against other sweaty bodies in every direction…but this is what pre-pandemic joy was, magic moments that gave the body supreme joy. The celebration of what was, in sometimes the best way of coming terms with what is devoid in the present.”

The next two tracks, PROTESTATION, and EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, contain socio-political contemplations and personal experiences for Devlin, by speaking to history and current affairs in which a community or groups of citizens are consumed by conflict and unrest. PROTESTATION tells the story of an individual, caught amongst violent protests, looking for a partner they have lost, “the narrator is caught in the avalanche of emotions, energy and panic; they are caught in a protest, and realize they are drowning under the waves of people and emotions.”

EAST BERLIN & DILLEY was inspired by Devlin’s Dad’s. “He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war. He chose this status when he was drafted, and instead of being placed as a medic, on the front line, was assigned a tour in Europe. When finished with his service, he was given the option to go home to the US or to stay in Europe. He choose the latter and backpacked through Europe. “When I was a little girl, my Dad told me about taking a train through East Berlin. He talked about the train stations being darkened, as the trains passed. The idea of a wall going up over night, and families being split in half, resonated with me then, and I harkened back to that memory when I started hearing Trump talk about building a wall. There is a very good chance I would not be here today if my dad had chosen a different path. My song, EAST BERLIN & DILLEY, in part, is extracted from his memories of traveling through East Berlin when the wall was still up and the correlation I found between his memories and the current political choices made for how detainees at the boarder are treated and Trumps efforts to isolate.”

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR also includes the tracks RED CEMENT PIANOS, an acoustic, heart-wrenching narrative of love lost, NATURAL BORN KILLERS, inspired by the 1994 thriller written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Oliver Stone, and bearing the same name, and, I WATCHED ME DISAPPEAR, a song inspired by Devlin’s participation in the Bushwick Book Club reading assignment of "My Brilliant Friend," by Elena Ferrante. “In the first few pages, the main character talks about her friend's disappearance,” says Devlin, “no more than 15 pages in, I put down the book, and this song poured out of me."

Elizabeth Devlin is a visual artist, poet, singer, multi-instrumentalist and curator of numerous art, music, and literary events including the series: PoeTrap, Prose By Any Other, and Token Folk Acoustic. Her debut chapbook, Milkspine, is forthcoming in 2023 (Dancing Girl Press). Devlin’s art and poetry have appeared in Epiphany, Cobramilk Issue 2, The Opiate, Bomb, We the Tender Hearted and elsewhere. As the Founding Director of Bessie’s, a private artist studio and salon, she hosts art, community, literary and acoustic music events, in Brooklyn. Devlin has toured nationally and internationally for over a decade; an autoharpist/singer-songwriter with avant-garde folk sensibilities, she defies traditional song structures, weaving small worlds where magic and fantasies collide. Devlin’s third full-length album, Orchid Mantis (2017), received 4.5/5 from Impose Magazineand is the follow-up to the previously released albums: For Whom the Angels Named (2011, 12”Vinyl), Ladybug EP (2011, 7”Vinyl) and All Are Relative (2009, CD).

Contact: ElizabethDevlinBand@gmail.com - ElizabethDevlinMusic.com 

Elizabeth Devlin, with her haunting combination of lilting voice and enchanting Autoharp, is a self-produced NYC singer-songwriter. Devlin defies traditional musical structure with many of her songs, building miniature narratives and magical worlds where characters, fantasies and time collide.
Devlin has toured nationally, internationally, & performs in venues throughout NYC's 5 boroughs.

ElizabethDevlinMusic.com
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