Bell Orchestre
Feels
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Bell Orchestre, the all-instrumental chamber orchestra side project of Arcade Fire members Richard Reed Parry and Sarah Neufeld, will likely sell a gazillion copies of their debut, Recording a Tape the Color of Light (Rough Trade), based on association alone. It’s the sort of thing that might appeal to anyone looking for a more “sophisticated” variation on the irresistible pop drama we’ve come to expect from their other band. Though I hate to dash the hopes a 7.9 rating on Pitchfork instills, unless some consensual, messy frottage between Mike Oldfield and Jean-Luc Ponty is what you’re scouring the bins for, consider your parade urinated upon.
Don’t get me wrong: Bell Orchestre has dynamics. Strings purr and rub up against some really funky chimes, then build, get quiet–and build again! And there’s unsubtle discord in the horn arrangements: the trumpet-French horn duel that drops like a wet turd from the sky a minute and four seconds into “Les Lumieres Pt. 2” sounds like a death match between first chairs in a high school band. It’ll make you wish they’d quit the song after Pt. 1. Recording melds the push-button dynamics and overwrought gesticulation of a Billboard-charting emo band with the edginess of a Windham Hill sampler, and if you’re thinking it doesn’t get much worse than that, rest assured: you are correct.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Animal Collective’s recent collaboration with neofolk icon Vashti Bunyan is a sign of their psych authority–if Feels is to be taken at face value, they’ll be foisting Andreas Vollenweider on us next.
