TLOBF Interview :: Bell Orchestre

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Bell Orchestre, who released their latest album As Seen Through Windows, last week, took some time out to speak to TLOBF about their song writing and influences. Adam Elmahdi asked the questions.

Bell Orchestre started recording their first album in late-2003, at a time which heralded a spectacular boom in Canadian independent music that hasn’t quite abated. Why do you think that was- did it come out of nowhere, or was it just that the outside world hadn’t picked up on the burgeoning scene before then?
Definitely the latter. There were fantastic canadian independent bands coming and going for ages before any international attention…

With the members of Bell Orchestre all having other projects and touring commitments, what effect did that have on the writing of the new album? It must have been hard to find time to get you all into the same room…
Yup, definitely tricky. Writing for our band is an ongoing thing, we just do what we do and make time for recording and it slowly comes together. We write in different formations sometimes when we can’t all be together.

The cover of Aphex Twin’s “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” was an odd but inspired choice- what made you decide to cover it?
Fun. Beautiful. Heavy. Y’know.

Particularly on the new album, there’s a distinctly cinematic feel to your compositions. Have you been offered film work, or does moving in that direction appeal to you at all?
Yes it would be an interesting direction to pursue. Our music and process has a life of it’s own, an angular and dynamic movement to it that can actually make it hard to set to film. It might actually be easier to make a film to our music.

Richard is quite the talented multi-instrumentalist- what would he regard as his primary instrument?
Double bass.

To Richard and Sarah- I recently had the pleasure of seeing Bell Orchestre play a pretty intimate venue in London; how does performing in such small settings compare to the stadiums and festivals that you encountered with Arcade Fire?
Smaller. More intimate. Different. We can hang out with the audience afterwards and not have it be weird.

Whilst some bands (especially instrumental ones) treat performances as a sterile recital of their recorded material, Bell Orchestre seem to put their all into their gigs. How do you prepare for your shows? Do you consider how you’re going to play songs live whilst you’re composing, or does that come afterwards?
Afterwards. There are some recorded pieces that we can’t do live, and there are some pieces we play live that we’ve never successfully recorded. It sort of works itself out for us. Either pieces sound good when we play them live or they don’t. If it’s the latter, we stop playing them live.

And finally- what next for Bell Orchestre?
Something raucous and fun and beautiful.