‘At the Cecil’ is the final single by Auld Gods taken from their debut album ‘Older, Wiser?’
It’s the story of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles. Built in 1924 the hotel was the last word in luxury attracting a moneyed clientele as Los Angeles boomed. Following the Great Depression, the hotels fortunes took a tumble, and it eventually became a source of low cost accommodation as poverty drove the surrounding area, in the centre of LA into a haven for the hopeless known as Skid Row.
During this time the hotel gained a reputation following a series of lurid homicides which were greedily taken up by the tabloids, the most infamous being the Black Dahlia. Things didn’t improve in the 80s and 90s as the hotel guests included serial killers Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger.
The hotel attempted to relaunch itself as a centrally located place for backpackers in LA. At this time a student from Vancouver, Elisa Lam, staying there disappeared sparking a frantic search eventually culminating in the discovery of her body in one of the hotels water storage towers. A CCTV of Elisa behaving in a strange way in the hotel elevator want viral on the internet and a stream of theories were floated by frenzied YouTubers. The truth was in the end straightforward and deeply sad in that it was believed that she climbed into the tank during a psychotic episode resulting from under medication for a severe bipolar disorder.

The song captures the febrile atmosphere during Elisa’s disappearance starting with a simple piano riff and eventually building to cacophony of guitars. Davy’s vocals build during the song with a background of treated guitars, bass synthesizers and a simple bassline slowly rack up the tension.