According to Tong, "[Cooper and I] did an afternoon of playing and writing with engineer and drummer friend David Nock and pretty much decided there and then to form a band.

[1] After Erland and Nock recorded the track "Coming Home" for Tong and Youth's compilation What the Folk (Vol 2), the three began writing and playing together around London.

(on which he re-recorded individual albums to meet demand because his tape machine was broken), Erland and the Carnival released a limited edition debut EP in September 2008, with each CD containing different recordings unique to each copy.

"[9] For Folks Sake praised the production quality, stating "the crystal clarity and spatial acumen in the recording of the instrumentation and vocals is a brilliant work of dissection.

[12] According to a review of the album by Pop Matters, who gave the album 6/10 stars, "Weaving psychedelic choral interludes out of the Electric Prunes' Mass in F Minor with early Jefferson Airplane and occasional Tom Waits madness, the band's sound is very, very unusual...just don't expect strong melodies or pop hooks on this one; that's not their aim.

[2] According to James Monger of Allmusic, "The group takes traditional folk music and then filters it through the swirling psych rock of Piper at the Gates of Dawn-era Pink Floyd, the electro-freak folk of Animal Collective, and the pastoral creep of bands Espers and Vetiver, resulting in a wild pastiche of digital trickery and oral tradition that channels the spirit of '70s progressive rock while staying true to pop-song brevity.

[19] Erland and the Carnival became known for their contemporary arrangements of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, including "Tramps and Hawkers", "Was You Ever See" and "Love Is a Killing Thing", collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The track "The Derby Ram" is a modernisation of a folk standard about a giant fictional sheep, reworked to comment on the suicide of Shaun Dykes.