Article Contributed by Pitch Perfect PR
Published on 2026-11-11
Today, Deloyd Elze—the project of Florida-born, California-based Jacob Henry Allen—presents the new single and video, “Yamaha 250.” Following his March 2026 EP, Nellene, and its extended version, both out now via Concord Records, the track captures the unspoken inner struggle of living in a new city and the unspoken let-downs between partners and parents. The synth and acoustic guitar are intricately layered with the drums, and as the song builds, banjo, bass, SP-404MKII and pedal steel join in.
Deloyd reflects, “Not long after settling into my old apartment in Hollywood, I picked up a typewriter from a local thrift shop and fell into a daily ritual — writing before my old construction job, or writing when I returned home. Each entry became a small record of what I saw along the drive, and Hollywood, I quickly learned, is a liminal place: extremes on both ends of the spectrum.
“While collecting my case studies, I'd been experimenting with a drum technique my friend Wilter developed — building stock Ableton drum racks to approximate the fractured, non-repeating logic of an Autechre style drum machine. Over the Autechre style drums, I wrote what became the guitar riff for ‘Yamaha 250,’ and later layered in live drum breaks, drawn to how the organic and mechanical rhythms collided against each other.
“The lyrics began from free-associating, pulling lines from a backlog of old poems and short stories, splicing them together until the song had assembled itself almost without my noticing. The line ‘you set the table, and I'll say grace’ arrived while I was hunting for something to anchor the song — I looked up at my own empty dining table, and it simply fell out. It means more to me than its literal reading; like the rest of the song, it's really several things folded into one, the way all these small, strange moments seem to weave together into a single story.”
Watch the video for “Yamaha 250” below.
Deloyd makes what he calls “digital twang,” music that sounds like it’s been captured on a digicam, rather than film, taking snapshots from the places he’s lived his life—from a Florida swamp pontoon, to working on boats and construction sites to scrape by in Los Angeles, to cracking a cold one with that old guy Willie living out back in his mom’s backyard in the doublewide. Deloyd’s craving to push the sonic form and musical boundaries of country music is what he sees as an exploratory way of writing songs; the touchstone of his particularly Floridian lens on country music.
Elze cites artists like John Prine, Ry Cooder, MJ Lenderman, Bon Iver, Dijon, and Mk.gee as his biggest influences, and Elze’s music sounds like a natural merger of all of them. As a Berklee grad with a blue-collar background and multi-generational Southern roots, Deloyd Elze’s form of country music is inspired by the myriad of lives he’s intersected with, from the grit of job sites to the inspiration of music scenes to the undersung glory of the swamps of his youth. His songs struggle through finding warmth and a home in this world, with grace for all of its strange turns and deeply twisted characters.
2026 saw several career highlights for Deloyd, including several showcases at SXSW in Austin, TX, and a support slot opening for Orville Peck at the Hollywood Bowl.
