The very welcome return of longtime Dubwise Vinyl favourite Elijah Minnelli with seven brand new tracks that further explore the unique sonic realm he has built joining the dots between dub, cumbia and folk.
Here he is also joined by two musical legends for the two vocal cuts that sit alongside five deep hypnotic dubs. When it comes to legendary figures in dub and reggae they don't get much bigger than Dennis Bovell who lends his vocals to the gospel tinged dub folk of opener "Canaan Land" and then Carwyn Ellis takes to the mic in his native Welsh tongue to deliver the rousing "Donna Donna (Chwerthin)".
As with all of Elijah's musical transmissions it is also accompanied by a written transmission from Breadminster County Council highlighting the record's relationship with the council's antiquated but still active Board of Abstinence which I have included in full below for those interested in some further reading around the subject. The record itself will come served up in a beautifully screen printed sleeve which you can feast your eyes on in the photos above
Another genius record from one of the most exciting and distinctive producers currently pushing the dubwise sound to thrilling new heights.
Due to arrive 28/11/25. Available for pre-order now.
In celebration for the release of Clams As A Main Meal both Elijah Minnelli and Dennis Bovell will be joining myself and Richard Fearless at the next HOLY which will be taking place at Cu in Dalston on 14th December. Tickets and info here.
Tracklist:
1. Elijah Minnelli & Dennis Bovell - Canaan Land
2. Sumptuous Promise
3. Watercraft Apologist
4. Elijah Minnelli & Carwyn Ellis - Donna Donna (Chwerthin)
5. Calopify Now!
6. Bomb The Green Belt
7. Long Conifer
Please note: if you place an order that includes a pre-order item along with other records that are in stock the order won't get sent out until the pre-order arrives so if you want the other records quicker then it's best to order the pre-order item separately.
Full official Breadminster County Council press release accompanying the release of Elijah Minnelli's "Clams As A Main Meal" (2025)
Even in these most turbulent of times, dub musician and fatigued onlooker Elijah Minnelli remains an inexplicable stalwart on the lower rungs of the Breadminster County Council.
His latest record ‘Clams As A Main Meal’ continues his astute siphoning of council funds, this time with help from the Breadminster Board of Abstinence. As a further mark of respect, the original head of the Board, Dr. K'houldoux, graces the cover art in his infamous ‘Looming Moon of Desire’ guise.*
As fine a backdrop as any for Minneli’s off-brand dub experiments, and ‘Clams…’ is the truest representation of his varied wheelhouse yet…
We find vocal appearances from dub goliath Dennis Bovell and Welsh-language singer Carwyn Ellis. A pair of tracks which build on 2024’s acclaimed ‘Perpetual Musket’, a collection of folk songs reworked alongside reggae vocalists, released by FatCat Records. It garnered glowing reviews, with nods from The Guardian and The Quietus concluding with prominent appearances on their respective yearly round-up lists.
Elsewhere, the album finds Minnelli in a more experimental mode, all wheezing contraptions and cockeyed bass, creaking with the weight of creation, a satisfying tactility laid seam-side up.
As well as ‘Perpetual Musket’, the new album follows years of sold out 7" singles, handmade and self-released. Online, the tracks have amassed global streams numbering in the millions. His tracks have found play across an eclectic range of radio mixes and dance floors, most notably the likes of Andrew Weatherall, Batu, Optimo and Zakia Sewell (BBC6Music).
It is perhaps worth mentioning that this everbuilding interest in his work is at great odds with the growing suspicions amongst his fellow townsfolk, who see his Breadminster County Council Music Initiative as nothing more than an empty cash-grab.
“No one sounds like Elijah Minnelli.” Sounds of the Universe
“The splicing of genres feels seamless, joyful and briskly contemporary.” The Guardian
“Earthy, rootsy mutations on the reggae gene, owing as much to folk and Cumbia as it does to dub.” Test Pressing
*For further reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence, please see below.
Further Reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence
In the late 70s, Breadminster was awash with the last vestiges of the hippy era. Though the flared silhouette of the lower leg remained, the utopian ideals that had once flowed merrily around the youth's shaded ankles had begun to wane. LSD and free love had led to a sharp spike in population and a generation of children raised by air-headed psychonauts unprepared for the bleary-eyed strictures of parenthood.
Aware of the crisis, the County Council entrusted Dr. Paulinque K'houldoux to spearhead a pushback, and it was his pro-abstinence movement - a mixture of education initiatives and radical renutrition campaigns - that came to impact Breadminster's census deep into the new millennium.
Being a pseudo-archipelago Breadminster has fundamentally limited resources, however deep-seated ties to distant coastal villages meant that oysters were a regular part of the local diet. K'houldoux pinpointed this as a factor in the town's overpopulation, and believed that simply replacing these with clams (a “lesser mollusk”) would help lower the erotic urges of the people. It was his “anti-aphrodesia” movement that first championed the idea of “Clams As A Main Meal,” and the slogan “Consider Abstinence” carried the message yet further.
The Breadminster Board of Abstinence soon became involved in all cultural happenings in the area, with K'houldoux MCing at prominent festivals and performances, sometimes dressed as the “Looming Moon of Desire” - an idea of his relating to the tide, seafood, menstrual cycles, and his privately held celestial predilections.
It was in 1981 that it was revealed Dr. K'houldoux had never fully qualified as a doctor and was seeking exile in Breadminster due to a series of botched bracelet heists in which he had previously been involved. K'houldoux was subsequently extradited to Basingstoke, where he served 3 of a 12-year sentence, owing to the lunar-oriented prisoner health campaigns he helped implement.
It has been a strange twist of bureaucratic fate that the Breadminster Board of Abstinence has never stopped receiving public funding, despite its lack of clear utility. And while its roots are tied to a rose-tinted past, the Board continues to sponsor cultural events and projects to this day.
An extract from: Eugeniq Schooner's article in Sydney Parishioner: “Clams, Breadminster and Countercultural Abstinence Trends” (2008)