Elpmas

Elpmas was recorded at Academy of St. Martin's in the Streets, a studio in Germany owned by Andi Toma.^[1] The album's title is the word "sample" read backwards; it was the first time Moondog used sampling in his music.^[2]

Der Spiegel wrote that the music on Elpmas lies between folk music and minimal music and called it pleasant.^[2] "Blue" Gene Tyranny of AllMusic described it as a "wonderful CD built from environmental sounds, gently rocking marimbas, lovely counterpoint for winds, foot-taping rhythms, and sweetly sung wisdom from a chorus".^[3] Moondog's biographer Robert Scotto called it "the strangest of his German productions and in many ways the most like his earliest New York albums".^[1] He wrote that it primarily appealed to those who appreciated Moondog's eclectic side and propensity to move his music into new phases and that it confused those who expected a unified expression. He called it "a little too much over the edge perhaps".^[1]