When the Red King Comes

When the Red King Comes is the second album by the Elephant 6 band Elf Power. It is a concept album about the Red King's kingdom. The cover art is taken from a section of an imaginary map called “The Land of Make Believe”, drawn in 1930 by Jaro Hess. A more complete version of the map can be seen in The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands.

"Needles in the Camels Eyes" is a cover of the Brian Eno song.

Critical reception
Trouser Press wrote that "though still noisy, the improved sound coincides with a sharper focus in the songwriting (that's good) and the first hint of impending mythological obsessions (not so good)." The Chicago Tribune thought that "in Elf Power's hands, psychedelia is a means of transforming personal trauma into a twisted kind of triumph."

AllMusic wrote that "the fuzzy, lo-fi production is an Elephant 6 hallmark, but the unique instrumentation (electric horns, pump organs, even Nepalese percussion) and cryptic, stream-of-consciousness wordplay suggest something altogether different."

Track listing
All songs written by Andrew Rieger unless otherwise noted.
 * 1) "Step Through the Portal..."
 * 2) "...Into the Everlasting Time"
 * 3) "The Frightened Singers"
 * 4) "The Secret Ocean"
 * 5) "The Arrow Flies Close"
 * 6) "Icy Hands Will Never Melt Away"
 * 7) "When the Red King Comes"
 * 8) "The Separating Fault"
 * 9) "Spectators"
 * 10) "Introducing Cosmic Space" (Andrew Rieger, Bryan Helium)
 * 11) "The Bengal Parade"
 * 12) "Needles in the Camels Eyes" (Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera)
 * 13) "...The Silver Lake" (Laura Carter)
 * 14) "It's Been a Million Years"

Personnel

 * Andrew Rieger - guitars, vocals, flute, zanzitophone, keyboards, bass, percussion
 * Laura Carter - keyboards, vocals, Moog synthesizer, zanzithophone, loops
 * Bryan Helium - bass, vocals, guitar, sitar, keyboards
 * Aaron Wegelin - drums, vocals, percussion