Hailing from Florida and now rooted in Los Angeles, Deloyd Elze has emerged as a notable talent with a fractured approach to electronic-tinged alt-country, a sound he labels “digital twang.” The artist, who writes, performs, and produces under the name Deloyd Elze yet was born Jacob Henry Allen, drew our attention with his recent EP Nellene and its expanded edition, and he returns today with a fresh single. The track titled “Yamaha 250” is especially striking, weaving banjo and pedal steel with synths and samplers into a gently radiant whole. Allen explains:
Not long after moving into a modest Hollywood apartment, I picked up a typewriter from a local thrift shop and slipped into a daily routine — writing before my old construction job, or writing when I got home. Each entry became a small record of what I saw along the drive, and Hollywood, I quickly learned, is a liminal place: extremes on both ends of the spectrum.
While gathering my case studies, I had been experimenting with a drum technique my friend Wilter developed — assembling stock Ableton drum racks to mirror the fractured, non-repeating logic of an Autechre-style drum machine. Over those Autechre-inspired drums, I wrote what became the guitar riff for “Yamaha 250,” and later layered in live drum breaks, drawn to the collision of organic and mechanical rhythms.
The lyrics originated through free association, pulling lines from a backlog of old poems and short stories, splicing them together until the song almost assembled itself without me noticing. The line “you set the table, and I’ll say grace” appeared while I was looking for something to anchor the track — I looked up at my own empty dining table, and it simply came out. It carries more meaning than its literal reading; like the rest of the song, it’s several ideas folded into one, reflecting how small, strange moments can weave into a single story.
Listen to “Yamaha 250” below.
