The Constellations

After-hours Atlanta is an unsavory place. The weekend warriors have fled to the suburbs, the real nightcrawlers are out and about, and the bar staff lets its hair down to get their own party started, which is right where the Constellations' debut CD, Southern Gothic, picks up.
The studio project-turned-full-fledged band – rounded out by core members Devin Donnelly, Elijah Jones and Ben H. Allen – envisioned Southern Gothic as a freak ride into the underbelly of late-night Atlanta. "We wanted to capture those dark and dingy places that you see at 4 or 5 in the morning," explains Allen, who is best known for his studio work with artists such as Christina Aguilera, Gnarls Barkley and Animal Collective.
Southern Gothic is a slick pop album, released on Allen's Make Records Not Bombs label. Throughout each song, vocalist Jones channels the spirit of a deranged and street-hardened bard spouting off tales of drugs and urban depravity over a web of intense back beats and a confident disco swagger.
Songs like "Love Is Murder" (featuring Cee-Lo) and "Take A Ride" are sonically complex numbers that rely on simple harmonics. A barrage of syncopated beats and rhythms bound from song to song, creating the illusion of a wall of sound that disguises the minimal two- and three-chord structures. "The idea was to write songs that we could play on just a piano or that we could play with 12 people on stage and still have them be compelling," says Allen.
The centerpiece of the album is a revision of Tom Waits' song "Step Right Up," where Jones leads a roller-coaster ride through Atlanta locales, name-dropping door guys, bartenders and DJs at the Drunken Unicorn, El Myr, the Star Bar and all points in between.
"Blondie from the Clermont Lounge is as much of a character in the Constellations' story as anyone else," he says. - Creative Loafing Atlanta

Flashback to summer 2006. “Crazy,” the track bringing together Atlanta-based hip-hop players Cee-lo and Danger Mouse, is being heard across America. Now fast forward to winter 2008, where a packed out show at The EARL in East Atlanta sees former Gates of Berlin front-man Elijah Jones crooning out blues tinged melodies backed by some of Atlanta’s brightest young musicians. Connect the dots between point A and point B and you get Atlanta’s newest buzz band The Constellations.

What started out as friends playing around in producer and Constellations member Ben Allen’s studio while he finished up production for “Crazy” has evolved into one of the city’s most talked about groups. “It started off as a studio project,” says Allen. “We really had no intentions of being a band.”
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Whether or not the basis was to make a record, the marriage of core members Elijah Jones and Devin Donnelly from Atlanta rock outfit Gates of Berlin and Grammy award-winning producer Allen couldn’t have possibly yielded a result that was anything less than special. Add the talents of rotating members Chandler Rentz (Snowden) and Jonathan Hall (Ponderosa) and you’ve got all the makings of an Atlanta supergroup, although Allen is quick to laugh off the hyped-up term.

While the original intentions might seem humble, the boys indeed have a much larger goal in mind. Currently, Atlanta is best known for its contributions to the musical worlds of rap, crunk and hip-hop. Allen and crew are hoping to put a new spin on what it means to live in the Dirty South.

“Atlanta is the epicenter of rap worldwide ... then you’ve got this sort of indie rock side that’s been blowing up,” he says. “We wanted to show there was this dark side to Atlanta, this sort of underground ‘MJQ on a Saturday night at 3 a.m.’ vibe. It’s just about that sort of other side of Atlanta that everybody sees but nobody really knows about.”

Drawing from the grittier aspects of Atlanta’s ever growing nightlife scene, the group looks to shift the spotlight from the blinged-out glamour of hip-hop to a darker, edgier, sex-drugs- and-rock-’n’-roll soaked subculture.

However, the road to a record has been slow in coming, taking nearly two and a half years to finish.

“We didn’t just stop and do a Constellations album in a month,” Allen says. “Time is precious, people have different schedules and it’s been difficult for everyone to focus on just the record.”

The laid back sensibilities of southern culture is one of the many reasons he believes the Atlanta music scene continues to thrive. “It’s not such a rat race here. I can’t imagine being in a band in Brooklyn, it’s got to be hard to get inspired.” Allen continues, “Music is so globalized it really doesn’t matter where you are. Atlanta is so cost effective and for us it’s just a great quality of life here.”

Despite all the hype surrounding them and all the accolades pouring in, Allen and his band mates are keeping everything decidedly low key.

“Right now we’re keeping it simple and just working on as much of a grassroots level as possible,” he explains. But don’t let that casual attitude fool you — the group has a keen eye fixed on exactly what they want and how they’re going to get it. “That’s where you’ve got to be in music right now, you have to be conscious of the things that you’re competing with,” says Allen. “Then the key is to do what you do better than anyone else, so that you create a market for yourself. That’s what The Constellations is really all about, bringing something that really doesn’t exist so we don’t have any competition.”

All credentials and hype and expectations aside, the boys are essentially just trying to get back to what it really means to be in a band. If their forthcoming album is any indication, we’re all in for a wild ride. For all these grand expectations heaped onto the group, Allen asks but one thing in return: “If you download the record for free that’s fine, just make sure you give it to 20 of your friends!” We don’t think that’s going to be a problem. - Southeast Performer Magazine

I just found about this new band called The Constellations from Atlanta from KissAtlanta. When I first heard their music, I was blown away. We played WHTSTD on this past week’s show. Think of it as Tom Waits meets the Gorillaz. The members inlcude Grammy-winning producer Ben H. Allen (Gnalrs Barkely), vocalist Elijah Jones & multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Devein Donnelly. The album will feature artists such as Cee-lo and new artist by the name of Asher Roth (sounds like a chilled out Eminem). And it will be the first group to have an all-girl clapping squad. A band to definitely to watch out for in 2008. - Needledrop magazine

Combine a Grammy-Award winning mixer/producer and
two studs from the late lamented Atlanta band, Gates of Berlin, and it’s
going to make for instant buzz. After two years of slowly and
methodically crafting their sound and identity, it seems that the
Constellations might finally live up to the anticipated hype.
Born two years ago out of Atlanta’s Maze Studios, The
Constellations, which consists of red-hot producer/writer Ben H. Allen
(31), singer Elijah Jones (30) and instrumentalist Devin Donnelly (24),
came together when Allen was mixing a song for the indie-rock
playboys of Gates. It was perfect timing. Jones and Donnelly’s band
was in the midst of crumbling, while Allen’s unique knob-turning
talents had begun to take flight with Gnarls Barkley’s genre-busting
and Grammy Award-winning first album. The three clicked, and the
idea was instantly hatched to combine Allen’s tightly-intricate, almost
Gorillaz-like production with the post-glam-era-Bowie-meets-raw-
southern-rock sounds of Gates of Berlin. What’s not to love?
“I was a big fan of Elijah’s,” explains Allen, a lanky, zen-like music
maverick who doesn’t drink, dresses like an indie film producer and
crams his studio schedule to the point of exhaustion. “He had all these
songs that weren’t making the cut with Gates of Berlin, and I just
thought he was such a diamond in the rough but hadn’t gotten the
right thing to really frame him.”
The three bunkered down in Allen’s studio to hammer out ideas.
Their obsessive, super-secret M.O. allowed for no shows, no website and
absolutely no leaking of songs until their meticulously crafted album was
ready. A cast of Atlanta’s music royalty including Cee-lo and Whigs’
drummer Julian Dorio, who frequented Allen’s studio, ended up playing
on The Constellations’ debut—which only added to the web of intrigue
surrounding this underground project. The result is a highly anticipated,
independently produced, 12-song gem titled Love is a Murder available at
independent local record stores this month.
Equal parts sample-y indie rock, head-bobbing hooks and just
enough spoken word to give it a universal appeal, Murdersounds like Beck
if he collided head first into the Gnarls Barkley duo in a southern dive bar.
Jones’ whiskey-soaked drawl crawls over the prodding bass lines and
catchy background vocals, dishing local night-crawler tales like an
Atlanta ringmaster. “The overriding theme of the album
is to show the underbelly of Atlanta that
maybe nobody really knewabout,” explains Allen, “what
happens between midnight and 6 AMin the city.”
“I wanted to paint a picture,” adds Jones, who coined all the
lyrics, some part spoken and part rap, on Murder. “Just a grimy
Atlanta scene. I’m a good spokesman for that.”
The eclectic showman Jones is as known for his hard-
partying ways and his bo-ho artistic existence—living phone-
less and care-free with his girlfriend, sporting shabbily cool
clothes and puffing on an ever-present cigarette dangling
from his lips. Spinning tales of drug-induced nights at the
seedy-cool hipster haven Clermont Lounge (Atlanta’s oldest
strip club) or of the colorful characters at the Drunken
Unicorn, the raucous club without a sign at Ponce de Leon
Place, and the hookers who mingle outside—Love is Murder is
an ode to Atlanta’s darkly glam demi-monde.
“That guy is totally out of control,” laughs Donnelly. “We
were basically living at MJQ, Lenny’s, the Earl. I like the fact
that the entire album is about the Atlanta hipster culture—both
the good and bad.” The spectacled, hoodied-youth of the band
seems to know his place. He’s bubbly, optimistic, and fits perfectly
between the studio workaholic and the party animal. “Ben is the voice of
reason, Elijah is the wild side … and I can go either way,” says Donnelly.
“We play off each other. The yin-and-yang makes it magical,”
explains Allen. “And that’s what I’m looking for, that’s Constellations.”
Crowding the tiny stage at the Star Bar in Little Five Points last
April, the Constellations certainly looked like an all-night party in the
making with the charismatic frontman in cherry-red pants, cool
backing musicians performing on stage and three hotties deemed the
“Clap Squad” providing 60’s-inspired backing vocals. Kids shimmied to
the dance-able beats as Jones delivered a drunken rant about
debauchery in Cabbagetown. The place was beyond sold out, and it
was only their third show. With a debut in February alongside
noteworthy Atlanta band Snowden, and a well-hyped South by
Southwest showcase in Austin, Texas, the Star Bar was jammed with
anticipation. True to form, The Constellations rocked the house and
left fans wanting even more.
Because of Allen’s mad studio schedule, (including nurturing up
and comers like indie-hip-hoppers Gym Class Heroes from New York
and Atlanta psychedelic/funk band Judi Chicago) there is no
Constellations tour lined up for the near future. There is not even a
series of local dates at presstime. The mysteriousness that pervades the
creation of The Constellation’s debut album seems to carry over to the
band itself and their habit of non-frequent gigging which, of course,
makes them even more sought-after. However, perhaps if you’re lucky,
and frequent the rough-round-the-edges fringes of town, you’ll
stumble across these guys doing an impromptu late-night session at the
Drunken Unicorn or other of Atlanta’s many demi-monde music dens.

- Atlantan Magazine