These ten songs mark the end of a two-year process of collaboration with producer Karl Sveinsson of Queens Ark Audio and will be mastered by the inimitable George Atkins (80 Hertz).

"Lush, complex and jazzy indie rock geniuses” (Burn the Jukebox), Elk emerged in 2010 from the break up of math-jazz pioneers Andy, Glenn and Ritch (TAAE) and played a handful of gigs with some of the world’s best underground bands: Birthmark, Bilge Pump, Algiers, Tellison, Crash of Rhinos, Brontide, ZA!, Cowtown. After releasing two critically vaunted EPs (“thoughtfully arranged, perfectly realised, refined” - Michael Glenister of Carefully Planned) the band set about making something more significant, more lasting; and so began the process that created Herd Songs. These songs were written on trains, motorways and in neon-lit industrial spaces between band members’ homes in Manchester, London and Grimsby, and the lyrical content reflects this sense of displacement.

The initial recordings made by Karl Sveinsson (Dylan Carlson, Gnod, Literature Thieves) in 2012 set the tone of the record: the intricate post-punk of Washington DC’s Faraquet meeting the blissed-out synths of Friendly Fires. The subsequent studio sessions fleshed out this rough-edged pop sensibility - “resplendent with melody over a jittering backing that belies a love of 90s intelligent rock, pretty and complex” - Rough Trade Records.