Alex Neilson, Mike Hastings, Lavinia Blackwall, Simon Shaw
CARBETH CD, Honest Jon's Records - £11 including postage
CARBETH LP, Honest Jon's Records - £12 including postage
BLACK FLOWERS - I GREW FROM A STONE TO A STATUE CD, Bo'Weavil Records - £9 including postage
Influences
Dunstable, Dylan, Dion
Sounds Like
Abandoned Love review (4**** stars, Mojo). From Medieval balladry to Garage Rock- Glasgow quartet’s brilliant second.
For Trembling Bell’s debut, drumming songwriter Alex Neilson used his break-up with singer Lavinia Blackwall as inspiration. Now the dream of England is creative fuel, it’s culture and geography undergoing a mythic rethink on this concise, deeply romantic, totally original album. A classically trained soprano, Blackwall brings elegance to songs that sound like they are populated by figures from an Edward Burne-Jones painting. On Darling, she explains that she has been busy serving the King of England as a harp trills away in the background. September is the Month of Death begins with a crumhorn fanfare that gives way to poetic, bucolic imagery illustrating a tale of grief. And the soaring, distorted guitars and jaunty beat of Love Made an Outlaw of my Heart reveal the musical wit and mischief that underpins the Bells’ apparently serious moments. (Will Hodgkinson)
Trembling Bells are Alex Neilson's song-based group who seek to reanimate the psychic landscapes of Great Britain and relocate them to some vague, mythic land where basic human crises are encountered and conquered.
The band are just putting the finishing touches to their second album (provisionally called 'Abandoned Love') for Honest Jon's, due out March 2010. This is their most effective synthesis of Earlie Musik modes, Country music's bathetic romanticism, British Folk's edenic mystery and the priapic bombast of Classic Rock.
The album was recorded at Banchory studios (Glasgow) and mixed at Glo Spot studios (Glasgow) under the directing hands of John Cavanagh and Stevie Jackson.
A change in core personnel has seen Mike Hastings replace
Ben Reynolds on guitar. Mike has previously played with Lavinia Blackwall (vocals, keyboard, guitar) in Glasgow band The Pendulums.
Simon Shaw plays bass and sings backing vocals in Trembling Bell and is also a member of Glasgow folk rockers Lucky Luke.
That was so very fine and magnificent. I liked it so much! Not one friend would come with me to Bush Hall tonight. What fools. The lot of them. They are sacked. I tried. I grabbed their laptops and accessed your myspace and turned up the volume and waited and enthused.
‘But what is it?’, they ask
‘My favourite band’, I reply
And you played a song about Otley. Oh the finest rock in the universe sits there on the Chevin. A great and lovely wedge to be atop. After school (in Leeds) I would cycle and then walk and then climb and then sit and look across to Arnscliff.
Hi - saw you in Cambridge on Tuesday evening. Really enjoyed the gig, and have also really enjoyed the new album. I'll have a look this weekend at the photos I took and send you some if any have turned out OK.
"September Is the Month of Death" by Trembling Bells on my radio show, The British Breakfast on WRIR 97.3FM Richmond, Virginia USA and streamed live on wrir.org this Saturday between 9-11AMEST which is 2-4PMUK. Also Podcast on "Audiofumes."
Hi Guys, Really enjoyed the gig at The Doghouse last week! Been listening to your cd loads. Have a gander at our page, Lavinia said she'd remember the raven hair... Peace Jen x
Firstly, trembling bells, i love your music! Secondly, mike, hi, tis I, Tony! Remember nice n sleazies on a monday and the time we had no sugar for coffee so we used jam instead? Crazy times! Good to see your having some sucess, i'll try and see you guys on the 15th, i live just along the coast,
Trembling Bells + the tragics + jasmina maschina@ The Old Cock Inn, Halifax. May 7th. £5.50 adv from ticketweb or pay on night. student discount available. 830pm. on stage 11.15. more info at www.doghouseuk.com
I concur with the comments below. Great new album. Never thought back in the Directing Hand and Motor Ghost period that we'd get something like Ravenna, but I love it all the same.
Hi Trembling Bells. Been listening to Abandoned Love over the last couple of days. It is a stunning album full of genuine invention and gorgeous songcraft. Absolutely superb stuff. Stephen.
Hello! I'm a student at southampton solent university currently writing band profiles for the Trowbridge Pump Festival. We are working on a magazine for the festival, and I was wondering if possible if I could take one of your pictures of your band to use for a band profile of you? If you could send any to me, it would be really helpful, my email is lucy_griffin99@hotmail.co.uk. I can't take the pictures without asking as i have to give credit to other people for taking them. Thanks for your time, i hope to hear from you soon.
(i also sent this in a message but wasnt sure if you'd get it) Lucy Griffin
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