Artist: School of Seven Bells
Hails from: Brooklyn, NY
Musical Style: Electronic, Pop, Psychedelic
For Fans of: Secret Machines, Blonde Redhead, Cocteau Twins
Why you should check them out:
School of Seven Bells is a chameleonic tapestry of darkly themed, futuristic electro pop. The trio helms otherworldly beats and fantastical melodies to create a distinct and mysterious mythos all their own.
Background check:
Guitarist Ben Curtis first met the Deheza twins, Claudia and Alejandra, while all three were on tour, Curtis in the Secret Machines, the sisters in On! Air! Library! After a late night program about the mythical School of Seven Bells pickpocket academy in South America, the name inspired Curtis and the Deheza’s to eventually drop their current projects and hole up in a shared space to pursue SVIIB full time. After touring with Blonde Redhead and releasing the single “My Cabal” the trio came out with their acclaimed debut LP, Alpinisms, in 2008.
The music of SVIIB is a soaring assortment of Curtis’ understated shoegaze effects rooting the Deheza sisters’ electronic indie pop. The trio have an unusual writing process that begins with lyrics and is formed around the themes singer Alejandra conjures up. Often cryptic to outsiders, the group insists their songs are not mysteries to be solved, but rather to be simply experienced. And, indeed Alpinisms is like an album from a foreign world, often a swirling myriad of moods and states of mind. The group can keep things vibrant while the sweetly harmonized vocals swell and break against the music in a dramatic fashion, and tone down the tempo to realize a more Eastern approach to songwriting without ever becoming the new age cliche.
As a group, SVIIB is completely different from what the members were pursuing before, yet this incantation serves the three perfectly. The Deheza’s sound like they were made for this kind of lush, dreamy pop, and the guitars and effects provided by Curtis are pitch perfect. All together, School of Seven Bells is a sprawling and hypnotic journey into a dream world of the highest caliber.
Where you can find them in Cyberspace:
Wikipedia
MySpace
On Tour:
JamBase
