In the spring of 2005, Benj Hochfelder was a high school sophomore and Anna Schmidt had just graduated high school. Benj had been writing music for a couple of years, but had only performed a few times. Anna had been the drummer of another band called Lumnotten. Right as school got out, they went on a choir trip together to tour the country of Costa Rica. After ten days of sneaking out night after night to experience the magic of the tropics together, they were forced to return to their flat little streets. This caused a tremendous void. Making music together began to fill that void.
It started in Anna's brother's old bedroom with Benj strumming and Anna drumming. In August, Anna moved to Omaha, Nebraska to go to college and the two became separated. Four months later, Benj packed up shop and moved to Omaha. He secretly lived in Anna's dorm with her.
During that winter, more songs were written and Benj and Anna officially became Foreign Elfest. By the spring of 2006, twenty six more songs had been composed, originally centered around the instrumentation of guitar, keyboards, and percussion. Benj soon began focusing on a smaller set of songs to fully produce. In the summer and fall, he wrote more parts for those songs. These included bass, violin, and piano. In the fall, Richie Rosenthal and Rob Strobel were found to play the bass and violin parts, respectively. Lauren Blakemore played keys for about two months as well.
Anna and Benj self-recorded some songs in the house that they had then moved into with Rob. In early December 2006, Benj met Tony Bonacci and showed him a couple of the songs. He told Benj he liked what he heard and that he'd record them for free in his bands home studio. Foreign Elfest's eleven song debut, Blue Dirt / Red Carpet, was recorded there with Anna playing drums and Benj recording all other parts, minus violin. Blue Dirt / Red Carpet was independently released in early March of 2007.
A few months after the release of Blue Dirt / Red Carpet, Foreign Elfest altered their live shows. Benj and Anna began presenting a more direct instrumentation of the songs by stripping back down to a duo. This included guitars, keyboards, and percussion. Benj pulled out the distortion pedals and learned to play both the violin and guitar parts on the guitar at the same time for certain songs. He also played keys. Anna started rotating between playing drums, keyboards, and guitar parts.
Some press quotes:
"On songs like Four Years to Forgery and Of Prematur', Foreign Elfest's singer, Benj Hochfelder, displays vocal characteristics that carry the raw riot-raising power of a certain 1960's folk revivalist. But unlike many singer/songwriter's voices, his vocals are mostly smooth in delivery and somewhat seductive, like that of many post-punk, synth-pop bands. Some of it sounds somewhat lo-fi and home made, but it's clear enough to tell what is going on in the mix. All in all, if the music of Foreign Elfest doesn't catch you, the lyrics will. They're drop-dead brilliant."
-Stephanie Davidson, Peel Verbs - [Album Review]
"Foreign Elfest is a new addition to the world of Omaha music that will, with a little bit of fine-tuning, have the potential to make an impact on the local scene. Their debut effort "Blue Dirt / Red Carpet" was released last month, and they will be supporting the disc with a number of shows in Omaha and elsewhere in the near future. The driving force behind the band is the frontman and songwriter Benj Hochfelder, whose coming-of-age tales of love, loss and debauchery combined with a basso projection reminiscent of Faithless vocalist Maxi Jazz present a distinct and cohesive vision of a vibrant sound.
Although "BD / RC" has many overtones of a somewhat folky indie-pop album brought about primarily by the instrumentation that is driven by acoustic guitar and features more than a little bit of violin, the flowing stream of consciousness nature of the lyrics and relatively unchanging chords give these tunes more in common with Vedic chanting than with a typical 1-6-4-5 pop rock band. The tracks flow easily from one to the next and range in feel from dreamy and mellow to angsty and anxious."
-Ian Simons, The Omaha City Weekly [Album Review]
"…Well-written and quite thoughtful resulting in a decent psych-folk indie affair."
-Smother Magazine [Album Review]
"From track to track, this album is very diverse, but in a good way. Track Four, Carbon Chemist Magic on Blue Dirt or Red Carpet, is as danceable as Spoon with the dark theatrics of fellow Omahans Cursive. Skip to the fifth track, Jumble o' Mea Culpa, and the vibe is nearly tropical and uplifting. This is quite a debut. Keep your eyes on Foreign Elfest."
-Nate Kinkade, Eugene Read 'Zine [Album Review]
Blue Dirt / Red Carpet is available at the FE online store , Homer's Music , and iTunes .
Foreign Elfest is touring this summer and fall.