Bell Orchestre
Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light

I don't know about you, but the first Arcade Fire album was a nice surprise for me: I listened to it a lot after purchasing it, and if I listen to it again, it still seems noteworthy. However, (I don't know about you) I am distracted, not prone to enthusiasm, compulsive, bored. In short, an old teenager. And so, already the second one, which is a good record, did not play with the same frequency in the player. Between one album and the next, however, a couple of those Canadians along with other young people from Montreal and its surroundings had put together a group and had allowed themselves a day off. The result is the strange creature I am listening to, named Bell Orchestre. Had you heard of them? I hadn't; I discovered them today, by chance.

And I like it, I like it a lot: you can tell they were eager, you can understand that they enjoyed their free walk, armed with diverse instrumentation: free from song form, they string together a sequence of scenes that unfolds naturally, creating a changing sonic theater. They play a lot with brass instruments (the horn, especially) and carefully dose the strings, often turning the arrangements into a sort of bucolic, sui generis classicism but evocative in its own way. They don't forgo a certain rhythmic emphasis but blend it into settings thick with spicy, "rounded" sounds, or immerse it in a climax with slightly ironic tones ("Les Lumieres Part.2") to then steer towards sudden spaces of airy brightness, almost dreamy. And from there they start again, trotting or galloping, with a constant breeze slightly stirring the scene. Vital and generous, without excessive pretenses but not without reason, the album flows with surprising ease, and the tracks, in the intersection between a sort of chamber music and certain tendencies to hybridize "rock" genres already emerged in Arcade Fire, enjoy an almost physiological "singability," although they are all instrumental.

A small album, but rich, well-crafted, tasteful, and sincere. I don't know about you, but for me, sometimes, it's a godsend.