Where Were You by Elephant Moon: Review

by admin June 6, 2025

June 6, 2025

Elephant Moon’s debut single “Where Were You” arrives like a hazy, haunted, and oddly comforting memory caught in amber. Anders Dal, the artist behind the moniker, interweaves melancholic folk, ambient Americana, and psych-slowcore into a slow-burning meditation on time, longing, and hope.

Opening with soft, open-G-tuned guitar strums and a vocal that feels like it’s just barely tethered to the earth, “Where Were You” is instantly immersive. Dal’s high, delicate voice drifts with measured clarity, each word gently trailing like a thought remembered mid-dream. Throughout, subtle textures creep in: the moan of lap steel, sharp glimmers of piano, deep drones humming with low, throaty vibrato.

Written in a North London flat and recorded across Denmark’s southern coast, the song carries the feel of places passed through, of plans made and lost in transit. The recurring line, “Where were you,” haunts with resignation and wonder, while the chorus, “Tomorrow is a ticket we travel on,” offers just enough warmth to pierce the melancholy. The lyric lifts the song beyond nostalgia into something more expansive: a gentle insistence that forward motion still matters.

Listeners have likened Elephant Moon’s sound to Nick Drake, Mojave 3, and Skip Spence, and they’re not wrong. But there’s a distinct voice here that goes beyond musical sensibility. With contributions from Moogie Johnson on lap steel and piano, and Nicolai Schmith on electric guitar, plus a wistful video by Hilmar Darri Flygenring, “Where Were You” feels like the first page of a beautifully slow novel you’ll want to linger in. Listen to it on Spotify.