April 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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April 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Chris Connelly And The Bells shine on second LP 11 April 2001
Now, there’s a critical difference between reacting to or rebelling against the status quo, on the one hand, and ignoring it entirely. The latter is far more difficult and courageous, and it is that toward which Connelly aims. The new album by Chris Connelly And The Bells, available since February on Invisible Records, was recorded over a span of five months in 1998—shortly after the release of his first album with The Bells, The Ultimate Seaside Companion. The two discs are starkly different. Blonde Exodus is denser, stranger, more iconoclastic, and more of a piece. If Seaside Companion was about warping pop music for the late ’90s, cross-breeding it with other genres, Blonde Exodus is about the alternative soundtrack hit parade on Mars in twenty years. As Connelly says in an upcoming, exclusive Rockbites interview, the first Bells album “...was compiled from various locations and with different collaborators. I was aiming towards a sense of contrasting dynamics, putting light with dark, and loud with quiet... I moved house a few times, wrote and recorded in Seattle, Scotland, and Chicago. I am really into travelogues, and by default, this record is such. “Blonde exodus, however, was written in a much shorter period of time, perhaps 4 or 5 months. I wanted the dynamics, but I wanted an overall specific flow to the record. So as I was writing I was also thinking ahead as to the aesthetics of the album, aiming to make it as cinematic as I possibly could.” Forsaking almost every reference to contemporary musical fashion (except in moments for the sake of counterpoint or irony or energy), on Blonde Exodus Connelly has instead looked deep into the past—drawing from evocative crooners such as Scott Walker, David Bowie, and Jacques Brel. He has simultaneously stepped out into the thin air of the future, daring to assemble wholly new soundscapes with a simple but often baffling interplay of timbres and rhythms. His tonal palette includes strings, piano, mandolin, harmonica, synths, a wide range of rock and orchestral percussion, acoustic and electric guitars, bass and cello, vocals, and effects. Rhythmically he’s just as likely to use a romantic 6/8 or 2/4 time signature as he is a standard 4/4 rock beat. Connelly’s lyrics stand on their own as deeply affecting poetry. And as personal as they are, they are abstract and evocative enough that a listener can find stories from their own life between the lines. In the title track, Connelly asks himself “Do you want to fill the room/With every empty room you ever knew?” It’s too much to take in all at once. Your first listen might leave you more confused than anything. But that’s fine, because the album wears very, very well with repeated use. Bit by bit you’ll discover hooks and melodies and images that proudly declare their own truth, offering themselves as new syllables and phrases for the collective musical vocabulary. Blonde Exodus is out now on Invisible Records for North America; and in a special 2-CD edition including The Bells’ first album, released a couple of weeks ago by Dream Catcher in the UK. Five bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. | Chris Connelly | | Invisible Records | | audio + video from Chris' Web site | | 2-CD set from Amazon.co.uk | | bio | | discography | | CD | | top of page | |
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