#less bells

[thenewobjective]

Less Bells ~ The Drowned Ground

It’s rare for an artist to release three excellent albums in a row, even rarer when it’s the first three albums; but this is what Less Bells has accomplished with The Drowned Ground.  Now billed as a duo, Mojave’s Julie Carpenter and Dain Luscombe are once again joined by friends who help to flesh out their vision.  Listen carefully, and one will hear the sound of coyotes and the desert wind…

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[radiophd]

less bells -- fiery wings

[dustedmagazine]

Less Bells — Mourning Jewelry (Kranky)

Mourning Jewelry by Less Bells

The album Mourning Jewelry takes its name from a Victorian custom where bereaved family members memorialized their loved ones with dark-colored, mortality-themed baubles, somewhat morbidly sometimes incorporating bits of the departed’s hair. Wearing mourning jewelry was an act of sentimentalism, but also one of love, making space for remembrance and contemplation of mortality in daily life. Julie Carpenter’s second album likewise makes space for introspection and consideration of our place in the world via ambient compositions for voice, strings, synths and percussion.

These pieces move slowly, punctuated by dream-like choral “ahs” and slow-unfolding plucked arpeggios of stringed instruments. Long sustained tones take cloudy shape, building, mutating gradually and then subsiding. You can pick out individual instruments—cello, stringed bass, voice and, very occasionally, bells—but the sounds have a nocturnal cast, as if surrounded in fog or remembered indistinctly.

Carpenter clearly has classical training and inclinations. The string arrangements are lush and full of emotion, nearly romantic in tone. However, she also works in minimalist ways, particularly in “Fiery Wings,” which has some of the interlocking rhythms and pixelated pulse of Steve Reich’s work, with cadences marked out by slashing cello and hammering rounds of altered keyboard. Elsewhere, Carpenter nods to Americana, dropping denatured banjo plunks into the sea-swirl atmospherics of “Queen of Crickets.” All sounds are distilled and burnished to an otherworldly glow. Even when you recognize an instrument, it will often sound like an idealized version of itself. Carpenter is not the kind of artist who likes to leave string squeaks in.

Carpenter’s music moves slowly and elementally, placid on the surfaces, but with a tidal force. It feels like nothing is happening at first, but as you adjust, you sense undercurrents strong enough to carve through stone, but very gradually, so that you can hardly see it.

Jennifer Kelly

[thenewobjective]

Less Bells ~ Mourning Jewelry

Less Bells ~ Mourning Jewelry

Mourning Jewelry is a stunningly gorgeous album; during the cavalcade of submissions we’ve had this summer, it’s the one record that stayed on repeat.  The music is adaptable to any situation.  It can occupy the foreground or fade into the background; it can provoke thought or emotion; it can seem sad or soothing.  Two years have passed since Solifuge, and Julie Carpenter’s band has only improved…

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[stevenvenn]

Less Bells - Forest Ghosts (from Solifuge) A beautiful debut, Solifuge, from Julie Carpenter (Less Bells) on Kranky this year. Slightly spooky, magical, and lovely.

[sputnika]

Less Bells - Bird in Hand

from the album 'Solifuge’

[affairesasuivre]

Less Bells (ambient orchestrator Julie Carpenter) signs with Kranky, announces new album Solifuge

Joshua Tree has been an inspiration to many musicians: The Eagles eponymous album cover was shot there, Gram Parsons was (almost) buried there, some band from Ireland called U2 even named an album after the place. Upstaging all those dudes, Julie Carpenter’s new Less Bells project will release its debut Solifuge consists of eight instrumental jams actually inspired by the physical locale.

Arriving September 14 via Kranky, Solifuge features all the haunting and sweeping undulations you might expect when you think of Joshua Tree. Created in collaboration with Dain Luscombe the duo draw on an arsenal of cello, Optigan, voice and synth to muster compositions “building from austerity to wild overgrowth.”

The band is also true to its name and appear to play no bells at all on Solifuge.

Known for her violin contributions to works by Brian Jonestown Massacre, Eels and The Autumns, Less Bells sees Carpenter transposing her string compositions to synth and deconstructing classical pieces into free flowing soundscapes. Basically everything you love from the Kranky catalogue, inspired by the Joshua Tree.

[theseventhhex]

Less Bells Interview

Julie Carpenter

Photo by Julie Patterson

The full-length debut by Julie Carpenter’s Joshua Tree, California ambient orchestral project Less Bells emerged from the drama and desolation of its high desert origins. She cites certain compositions as being specifically inspired by August monsoons rolling in over the mountains, others by clear, starry nights. Utilising an array of electronic and acoustic instruments, including cello, Optigan, violin, voice, and modular synth, the debut album, ‘Solifuge’, conflates not only the solitude and refuge of its title but also intimacy and grandeur, fragility and force, building from austerity to wild overgrowth. Carpenter’s versatility and embrace of flux fills her songs with a living, breathing quality, restrained but responsive, adapting to shifting conditions and emotions beneath the surface… We talk to Julie about her surroundings, being signed to Kranky and Doctor Who…

TSH: Having collaborated and worked on various projects over the years, you finally have your solo body of work completed with ‘Solifuge’. How would you summarise this personal achievement?

Julie: I’m immensely proud of this album. The impetus for this record mostly came from leaving the city and leaving my musical community behind. I came out to the desert to be creative. Out here I’m alone with my thoughts and my focus is more clearer. It’s more rewarding not having to run my ideas constantly past other people and I’m really able to do things my own way. It’s been fun for me to sculpt and subtract accordingly, and in turn find out what’s underneath.

TSH: Being situated in such a luminous place like Joshua Tree, do the natural events that unfold impact your music in certain ways?

Julie: A huge of portion of the songs are inspired by specific natural events out here and my immediate surroundings too. In particular the monsoon season in the summer is truly breathtaking. You get these beautiful thunderstorms that roll across the landscape and they go through within fifteen minutes. For a few moments everything looks black and stormy - and fifteen minutes later it’s all golden, bright and lovely again. You can really experience very emotional weather out here.

TSH: For your instrumentation, did you draw on specific motivations?

Julie: Well, I have some experience in film and TV, which definitely helped me to soundtrack my surroundings accordingly. For me, it felt like every landscape is a character and certain aspects are represented by difference instruments. I opted to make sparkling sounds by using a synth or a xylophone, which represents stars. Also, I used violins for the stormy winds too. I guess it’s not almost as defined as assigning an instrument to a character, but this way of working still did inform some of my ideas.

TSH: As you went about polishing the songs in the studio, what was your level of focus like?

Julie: It was very free-flowing. I had a lot of fun just gathering ideas and seeing what would stick. One of the great things about moving out here is that I have more time and space to myself to be productive and to find active inspiration. Some nights maybe nothing was achieved per se but I’d still wander out and look for inspiration, other nights I would finish whole pieces in one evening. I basically had waves of creativity coming to me, even if I felt a lull, I would never force my process.

TSH: Did you encounter challenges that you had to overcome too?

Julie: Knowing when a song is done is something I’m always looking to master, ha! You can potentially keep growing music because it’s so organic. It’s like using the analogy of growing trees and how they’ll get huge forever. I guess sometimes you have to decide when it’s the right time to let a song simply just stay how it is.

TSH: What are the origins of ‘Bird in Hand’?

Julie: Interestingly the title and the mood of that song came from this photo on the internet. Someone was selling an entire small Amish town called Bird-in-Hand and there was this church full of these wooden people - it was very strange and surreal. Also, the concept of a bird in hand and appreciating what you have is something that also fascinated me. So these concepts sort of came together and it just felt like a weird surreal alchemy that happened and the track seemed to fit so well.

TSH: Does ‘Golden Storm’ take you back to specific moments in time?

Julie: Yes, that song takes me back to the monsoon season out here, which can be blissful in ways. The rains out here are very intense, yet they are also very revitalising for the natural landscape. It’s quite intriguing how a natural disaster can be such a destructive force but also a creative force too. But yeah, this track brings to mind positive and good feelings for me, unlike some of the other grief-stricken tracks, haha!

TSH: How appreciative are you to be signed to such a renowned and stellar record label like Kranky?

Julie: It’s really my dream situation to be signed to Kranky. So many artists that I’ve admired over the years are on this label. I really feel like I’ve come home having joined such an amazing record label. It feels so nice to have found a family that understands my vision and supports me so much.

TSH: You’ve also had the support of BBC radio too...

Julie: I am personally delighted to have their support because I am such a huge BBC fan. The BBC workshops were a huge influence on me and I’m a huge fan of BBC television as well. I enjoy everything from old Doctor Who and The Mighty Boosh. Oh, and David Attenborough’s nature documentaries are very dear to my heart too.

TSH: Is sci-fi at the heart of things when you unwind outside of music?

Julie: Yes! I’m a huge science and science fiction fan. I spend a lot of time reading non-fiction and I also enjoy watching a lot of sci-fi shows. I’m also really into stop motion filmmakers like Jan Švankmajer, Jiří Barta and the Brothers Quay - a lot of the Czech animators have had a huge influence on me.

TSH: For your future music plans, are you simply hoping to challenge yourself in new ways and switch things up accordingly?

Julie: Certainly. I’m always looking for new ways to approach my music. Also, looking ahead I’m really hoping to refine my live performances. This album was created from the perspective of anything goes; however, I’m starting to work on new music that starts with the live performance of others in mind. I’m putting myself in the shoes of how other musicians would perceive and form my music. I’m almost doing it from the other side of the mirror and challenging myself in this way. Other than this, I just hope to always stay true to myself and be honest with my expressions.

Solifuge