My Rediscovery column about Sweet Billy Pilgrim's We Just Did What Happened and No One Came, today at All About Jazz.

My how things have changed. Upon first encountering Britain's Sweet Billy Pilgrim at the 2007 Punkt Festival in Kristiansand, Norway, funding was so diminutive that singer/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/erstwhile leader Tim Elsenberg was unable to bring the full group; instead, he came with bassist/banjoist/background vocalist Anthony Bishop...and even had to use a borrowed Fender Stratocaster, which caused no shortage of tuning difficulties throughout the duo's still-impressive set.

Just shy of a decade later, the group has been nominated for a Mercury prize (for its 2009 sophomore effort, Twice Born Men), earned significant critical response which, in addition to All About Jazz, was found in important rock/pop periodicals including Uncut and, in particular, MOJO, which awarded Twice Born Men's follow-up, 2012's Crown and Treaty, a rare Five Star/Instant Classic rating.

The group has also gone from being a self-produced DIY band with its 2005 debut, We Just Did What Happened and No One Came (Wonderland)--a characteristically self-effacing title that pretty much nailed the group's early years (as is so often the case with any new group)--to having its records released by avant-songsmith David Sylvian's SamadhiSound label (Twice Born Men), the majors (EMI, for Crown and Treaty) and, now, Kscope Records (2015's Motorcade Amnesia), one of the preeminent labels for progressive and post-progressive music, with artists like Britain's Pineapple Thief and Anathema, Norway's Gazpacho, and its most successful artist to date, Steven Wilson, whose star has continued to rise on a rapid upwards trajectory since putting Porcupine Tree on hold and going solo.

And Elsenberg--in addition to becoming both a remixer and engineer/producer--has written songs for other groups as well as becoming a music educator at a local school. A long way from running LAN lines as a day gig, when we first met at Punkt in 2007.

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