Chris Bell
I Am The Cosmos

THE REVIEW

The alarm for tomorrow is set early. But I'm not tired, and I put on a record to accompany me to sleep. I pick the most suitable cover for the newly begun winter: Chris Bell, with the immensity of the snow-capped Piedmont Alps in the background. Few know that after leaving Alex Chilton in the wake of the perfect pop-rock record, Bell - heir of a restaurant owner from Memphis - embarked on a long journey through Europe, even stopping in Turin. To cure his post-Big Star depression and find a patch between the edges of his soul. I have no trouble believing that from the gloomy and torn Savoy capital of the mid-'70s - where he held some solitary concerts in clubs - he sought escape by wearing boots and a windbreaker, to be lulled by the silences and vertigo of high altitudes. A run abruptly ended on a clear evening in December 1978, when Bell, back in Elvis's city, emulated Dylan going off-road with his Triumph: if Bob found in that accident the providential franchise from an already suffocating myth, for Chris it was the end of an unlucky life.

"I Am The Cosmos" is his posthumous album, released in 1992 thanks to the stubbornness of his brother and all who have tenaciously cultivated the cult of the Great Star. It gathers the only and legendary post-Big Star single and the best of the rare occasions when the singer/guitarist found the strength to go to the studio to capture his tender, sometimes angry and enchanted visions of the world. Perhaps it isn’t quite up to "Third/Sister Lovers" of his ex-partner, a supreme and refined pop masterpiece of the Seventies, it is instead often recorded in a chaotic manner, rough and polished like river pebbles, despite the occasional presence of people like Jim Dickinson and Chilton himself. But who cares in front of the compositional exuberance that oozes from these grooves, preserving the talent, spontaneity, and emotional charge of a very fragile author.

The sound is the usual: power-pop between Kinks and Byrds at its peak, often reinterpreted through a singer-songwriter mood, twilight and reaching out to the world, worthy of the first Nick Drake. Many are the great pieces that deserve to be rescued from oblivion: the biting rock and roll of "I Don't Know" and "Make A Scene", the crackling iridescent soul of the solemn "There Was A Light", with Harrisonian flavors, the raw and bright rhythm and blues of "Fight At The Table". Until the ballads that draw melodic arabesques of poignant clarity on the staff such as "Look Up", "Better Save Yourself" and "Speed Of Sound".

And then the two already released songs, capable of conquering legions of admirers, from James Iha to This Mortal Coil, who would cover them both. "I Am The Cosmos" is one of the happiest electric ballads ever, amid lysergic surges and that touching opening that encapsulates the arc of its author, powerfully declining the desperate romanticism of Big Star:

"Every night I tell myself,
"I am the cosmos,
I am the wind"
But that don't get you back again ".

And "You And Your Sister", where vibrant acoustic passages, sumptuous arrangements, and Chilton's vocal harmonies recreate the magic of the parent band: the latest CD reissue even includes the version for voice and guitar only, a winter star descending like confetti from the sky with the poor and naked demeanor of American folk. Chris Bell, who in his life was a star only to a few followers, could gaze at the horizon of the sea from certain peaks.