Bell Orchestre

As the brass sound starts to rise, the crowd goes quiet. It's a warm, full sound coming from all around the room, from multiple moving sources, hard to pin down, but then it suddenly starts coming from right behind me, and I turn to see a member of Bell Orchestre (dressed all in white and wearing several glowing lights) playing gentle, ringing notes on the French horn. He stops, pauses, looks around, and moves forward slowly, then starts to play again a few steps on, just as others around the room are doing. The band slowly congregate on the stage, the crowd already rapt and in the palm of their hand.

What follows is an impressive, impassioned display. Repeated motifs glide along, mostly made from violin, double bass, drums and brass, building to dramatic peaks and climactic blowouts. But not in the tiresome brow furrowing emo-post-rock way of all those earnest all-male guitar bands. There is gentility here, subtlety, and a sensibility that owes as much to contemporary classical music as to groundwork laid by Slint, and the bombastic quiet/loud structures of their post-rock disciples.

photo: John Brainlove

All of which the staging helps to convey. The white uniforms and glowing blue lights help to create a magical atmosphere, and the chandaliered interior of Bush Hall is ornate and impressive. The music ebbs and flows, from gentle string arrangement to pounding, mathematically precise and rhythmic repeated loops, and nicely creative embellishments such as banging on the body of the string instruments (transforming them into a booming piece of percussion); all the musicians stop playing at one point and clap in time, quickly, before beginning to play again in unison; at various points all the band members are singing without amplification, like a backing choir. There's an inventive flair that keeps things interesting.

It may not have the crossover appeal of the other project it's members are involved in (two members are the Hot Violin Girl and bespectacled fellow from Arcade Fire), but Bell Orchestre are nonetheless carving out a decent little niche of their own.