Spotlight on The Bell Divers

Busy busy busy weekend. I visited the Alley on Friday night and had a few too many [some thoughts to follow this week, perhaps today].

As I was saying last week, Collapse Board is now up and running. I submitted my first article on the weekend, a spotlight on local group The Bell Divers. You can tell I'm a fan. Here is a snippet.

Meet me in the games room and fuck me on the pool table.

Compelled by wistful melodies and punctuated by a series of odd characters, the songs of The Bell Divers are like novelettes, often exploring the realities faced by those most vulnerable to the pressures of today’s world. These might include homeless vagrants, criminals, and others, whose voices can be drowned out by a world obsessed with aesthetics and status. Other narratives investigate the well-trodden path of love and loss, juxtaposed with brutality and violence that is often stated with a matter-of-fact demeanour that a more conservative listener might find shocking or immoral. Still, it makes for interesting listening.

Life in a caravan, life with these brutal men.

I came to know of The Bell Divers through my two house-mates whom I lived with in Red Hill a few years back. They had occasionally played in the band while the group were still finalising their line up and were waiting for members to return from overseas. Naturally, I found myself going to some of the earlier gigs and listening to demos and all the other things sociable share house dwellers do.

There’s a little girl spread across the road and I don’t feel blue.

At the band’s heart are Clinton Toghill and Matthew Lobb, occasional penpals prior to beginning the group, the duo met in London to discuss the possibility of collaborating, before relocating back to South East Queensland in 2006 to make the project a reality. Filling out the band with the usual assortment of instruments (bass, percussion, keys), The Bell Divers played fairly regularly throughout the city, supporting the likes of The Fauves when they ventured up from the south, and also playing at some fairly unconventional venues such as Ithaca Pool and at a cake stall at a local community hall in Bardon. They quietly released their debut record June, July in 2007, which they recorded somewhere south of the border with Tim Whitten.

Have a read of the rest over at Collapse Board.

Also, The Bell Divers have a new tumblr blog, complete with some nuanced musings courtesy of Matt Lobb. It's quite entertaining.

Gig of the Freakin Week: The Bell Divers at Rics Cafe

The Bell Divers have been somewhat reclusive of late. One may speculate as to why this has occurred, but speculate no longer! The band are back and set to indulge the Brisbane public with their delicious brand of poetic pop to Rics Café this Saturday night, the twelfth of September, in an intimate set that promises to be tighter than the pants Tina Turner donned in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

I’m told by their skin-beating percussionist Donaldio that they have been tinkering about in old Queenslanders constructing new tales of whimsy and intrigue. I asked Donaldio what we could expect from the band in their post-member-reshuffle era, to which he replied:

“Clinton's vocals are heading north, scaling the snow-capped peaks and plunging into the fjords, Matt's bass has an edgy Southern rock vibe while Mel and I head west and east respectively with honky-tonk piano playing off against my ritualistic drumming.”

Expect some tracks from their glorious debut record “June July” that was released last year (which you can purchase/download on their website) along with a few new tracks. If you haven’t heard the Bell Divers before, have a listen at their myspace page.

This is a great local band and I encourage you all to get your rear-ends along to Rics Café this Saturday. Supports from Bliss, and a bunch of Djs with very postmodern names.

The Bell Divers - June, July

I've known of The Bell Divers for a few years. In fact, you could say that I know them more than the average punter, having lived with a former member, and played with most at least two of the five piece in our local futsal competition. These facts alone don’t bode well for an objective album review, so keep that in mind as you read. But wasn’t that nice of me? Admitting my inherent bias straight up like that? I thought so.

Well, I really do like their songs, and I really do like their album. I think many other people would too.

"June, July" is their Tim Whitten produced debut album. For those not in the know, Whitten is the man responsible for twiddling the knobs for quite a few popular Australian acts such as Powderfinger , Gaslight Radio, the Go-Betweens, and many others. Stylistically, the Bell Divers are closest to the aforementioned Go-Betweens.

"June, July" features the songwriting of Clinton Toghill, tackling a variety of subjects such as love, lust and lower middle class idiosyncrasies. "Life in a Caravan" and "I Love a Man in Jail" romanticises such subjects, with uplifting melodies weaved on top of tales of pool-table fornications.

Other songs such as "Swimming in the Flood" and "As Bad as We Can Be" retell tales of youth in a whimsical and yearning fashion, tunes that are immediately accessible to the more sentimental listener such as myself. Both of these tunes make good use of the extro (or outro or however you describe it), the former utilising a Rhodes-sounding piano over a driving drum beat, the latter featuring some great use of slide guitar which melds effortlessly into sweet meandering conclusion.

All the songs on the album are neatly structured, feature a good mix of instrumentation, and never become boring, a sign of adept song writing. For instance, "Window View" has a great mix of little melodies intersecting at straight angles, guitars, vocals and keys blending seamlessly in a way that just feels right. Furthermore, this song also features some well-penned lyrics, a staple of many Bell Divers songs.

However, the highlight of the record has to be the triumphant lead single, "Fallen Down", a gem of a tune which seems over much too soon, clocking in at a brisk one minute and forty-eight seconds.

Anyway, those are my thoughts, do yourself a favour and have a look into checking the Bell Divers debut album out. These guys (and one girl) are so nice they’re even giving their debut away via their website. However, I strongly encourage you to purchase it along with the single "Fallen Down", also available at their webernet site.