Bleed Your Cedar
Bleed Your Cedar is the debut album by the American alternative rock band Elysian Fields, released in 1996. It was a commercial disappointment. The album's first single was "Star". The band promoted "Bleed Your Cedar" by touring with labelmates the Heads. Production. The album was produced by band members Oren Bloedow and Ed Pastorini. It was recorded in two weeks at Pachyderm Recording Studio, where the band chose from a pool of 20 songs. James Genus played bass on the album. A photograph of the band's singer, Jennifer Charles, adorns the album cover; Charles wrote  the song lyrics. Critical reception. "The Village Voice" wrote that "Bleed Your Cedar" is "never strictly rock, trip, hop, jazz, or classical, although it embodies the characteristics of each ... More accurately, "Bleed" is an improv bouillabaisse—elegant licks, simple melodies, and wistful minor chords held together by drummer Ben Perowsky's ever steady beat, and Charles." The "Knoxville News Sentinel" opined: "Pitted against otherworldly guitars, lulling bass lines and drifting keyboards, Charles slips into the hypnotic cadences with erotic grace." The "Boston Herald" thought that "after five or six songs, the band's crawling tempos and Charles' doped-up vocals  take on a woozy sameness." The "Los Angeles Times" called Charles "a provocative crooner who intones like a cross between Mazzy Star low-key blueswoman Hope Sandoval and Congo Norvell torch queen Sally Norvell." The "Dayton Daily News" declared that "extreme cool has its place, of course, but just a little more heat would have made this ... a lot more exciting, not to mention easier to get through." The "Naples Daily News"' Steve Bailey concluded that the band "use effects like the tinkling of piano keys or the rich, eerie whine of the sitar to perfectly set the tone for  Charles' mournful vocals and lyrics"; he later listed the album as the eighth best of 1996. AllMusic deemed the album "a set of slow, gloomy and occasionally seductive jangle-pop that's often quite reminiscent of Mazzy Star."