House Music from Bell Orchestre is one nonstop 43-minute long piece that is both intense and monstrous. Because of the group's thrilling performances and improvisational skills working in one fluid motion, this is one of the most impressive and exciting new albums.
Bell Orchestre is an instrumental collective hailing from Montreal, Canada, notably features Richard Reed Perry and Sarah Neufeld, both members of the acclaimed Arcade Fire.
The group has been around since the early 2000's and have provided a couple of albums early on. It has been over a decade since the six-piece ensemble has released anything together, until now. House Music is the group's new album and boy is it an album of sorts. There's a lot to talk about this record, so let's start with the general details. It was recorded from a small rural house in Vermont and is being released through Erased Tapes records, a UK label that I highly recommend if you're looking for some of the most interestingly great music that can be described as combinations of classical, electronic, and ambient music (including groups like Penguin Cafe). The album itself is quite a unique collaboration within the members, since House Music is in fact one 43-minute long improvisational piece from start to finish. Yes, there are parts selected and numbered as "tracks" on this record, but each track really morphs into the next in one fluid experience.
Like I mentioned about the Erased Tapes label, House Music is in fact a unique combination of jazz, classical, ambient, electronic, and post rock music. When listening to this album, you really get to hear each member's instruments performing in such a way that you can dissect each moment or detail, while also being able to experience it as one wholistic piece. If this makes sense, then I did a decent job of describing it. If not, there is an excellent written blurb about the record on the Erased Tapes website that really describes the improvisational recordings and the "house" themes of the album (here's the link). House Music is arguably the most interesting album I've heard coming out of 2021 so far. Although it is that stylistic combination of different styles and sounds I mentioned, often times you get to points where so much is going on at once that it can be really hard to describe. The layers of instrumentation and sound can be both chaotic and thrilling at the same time, making each listen of House Music a new experience where you can find new details and sounds each time. The grander parts can be explosive and exciting, while some of the slower parts can be reflective and charming.
The instrumental palette on House Music is diverse to say the least: vocals, steel guitar, keyboards, drums, French horn, gongoma, trumpet, bass, strings, electronics, and so on. I do appreciate the album's decision to dissect the album into tracks, each one numbered as the specific part of the album (for example, the first track is "I: Opening."). Many of these songs surprisingly can be picked apart and listened to individually if desired, but of course the best experience is to listen as a whole. Of course let's talk about the best moments on the album, in which there are many. "Dark Steel" features what sounds like fast paced fiddle playing over some glitchy electronics, sharp percussion, and some abrasively melting horns (the most Southern fried moment on the album). "What You're Thinking," released prior to the album is one of the most explosive moments with its post rock like percussion. Its overall sound of bass, whirring strings, guitar progressing throughout create a swirling tornado of sound, whisking you up in it unable to see what's in it. It's kind of like a huge chugging freight train heading straight towards you. The track perfectly flies into "Movement," another brilliant highlight. This one is a bit more contained at first with its steady beat and flow, but does get pretty crazy once the track continues to its final minutes of what I would describe as a blissful chaos of altered vocals, deep bursts of electronics, and shattering drumming.
"All the Time" is a really cool moment on the album which kind of acts as an interlude containing more melancholy keys and strings (reminding me of Paul Simon's "Can't Run But") while also focusing on those sharp electronic bursts of sound you heard on the previous track (which is one of my favorite details of the record). "Colour Fields" is another huge highlight that sounds gargantuan with its rising instrumentation of strings, horns, and percussion. "Making Time" has some really cool jumpy, frantically distorted vocals from Richard Reed Perry that remind me of Tyondai Braxton from Battles' debut album Mirrored. The final parts of the album are really the only cool down moments on the record that are reflective and share similar sounds you've heard earlier on the album ("Nature That's It That's All" and "Closing").
What's brilliant about House Music is not only the amazing and outstanding performances themselves, but also the improvisation and quick decision making by the six musicians throughout this one 43 minute long excursion. It baffles me that some of this is improvised considering how planned out and carefully crafted these parts sound. The overall sound is very loud and explosive, so I do feel like you have to be in a certain mood when listening to this (like many albums). It's a nonstop thrilling album from Bell Orchestre that's surprising and fun throughout. It's by far the most impressive album I've heard in 2021 so far and it's incredibly diverse and expansive, almost acting like a riveting soundtrack to a play that has many different stages and acts. I highly recommend House Music. It has so many unique moments to discover over and over again, along with this memorable clash of musicianship that goes together so well, it really acts as one collective rather than six individual members.
My Rating: 9 / 10
Favorite Songs: "What You're Thinking," "Movement," "Dark Steel," "Colour Fields," "All the Time"
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