BELL//Echinacea

I think of all the acts I saw last weekend, I was most impressed by BELL. While girl clearly wears her influences on her sleeve (hiya, Bjork Jr., complete with a cover to prove devotions), the energy of her live set and the total utter sweetness of her drummer was undeniable.

Like Bjork, the music builds in strange and unpredictable spots, enhanced by the ambient keys, the dramatic drum entrances and the jerky dynamic vocals. This is effective. The big parts are SUPER BIG and they make you feel excited.

I also liked BELL because they were doing something totally different than any of the other bands I saw over the weekend. The setup: keyboards/vocals+drum machines+live drummer=pretty unconventional.

While this band’s draw is heavily-based in their music skillz (the reason I even caught them at Northside was Jing’s interest in their drummer through the Jazz scene, not to mention the fact that Olga Bell is also classically trained), this song has enjoyable lyrics as well. It’s called Echinacea, but it’s seems to me that it’s pretty obviously about the person in your life who makes you better.



Echinacea.mp3

From my mouth, you chase the red out
And turn me about
And fill me with trees.

You do me so well,
In sickness and health,
You do me so well.