Recording a Tape the Colour of Light

Recording a Tape the Colour of Light
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More superb autumnal music exists than any one person would ever have time to experience, but Recording a Tape the Colour of Light isn’t quite part of this tradition. The debut from the Montreal-based quintet Bell Orchestre embodies fall’s chilly bluster and forlorn, threadbare majesty, but simultaneously displays a festivity and a child-like wonder evocative of Christmas. “Les Lumieres Pt. 1” and “Les Lumieres Pt. 2” offer contrasting moods – the former’s sorrowful swoons of regal horns, violins and upright bass dissolving into orchestra-pit tinkering before kicking into the latter’s over-instrumented, over-caffeinated, pedal-steel-twang rampage. “Salvatore Amato” opens with icy melodica, horns and violin in plangent sync, drums ramping through the din to whisk the tune away on a sleigh ride; bright bells keep the rhythm as the brass and string sections groove like an expert cross-country skier.

This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2005.