SOUNDTRACK: KRISTIAN BELL-3 Songs (Field Recordings, March 27, 2014).
This is one more Field Recording that was done at SXSW 2014 [One Wytch, Unplugged In A Sunny Backyard].
I am unfamiliar with The Wytches. In fact, when I first clicked play on this, I assumed that the singer was a woman (the name Kristian is a little unspecific). The blurb says
The Wytches’ furious, hair-flinging psych-rock isn’t the stuff of back-porch acoustic sessions: Both live and on the English band’s singles, the energy is so intense, it can barely be contained. But when NPR Music arranged a Wytches session during SXSW — held in the charming backyard setting of Friends & Neighbors in east Austin — singer-guitarist Kristian Bell stood in for the whole band, with just his voice and an acoustic guitar.
In these three songs from Annabel Dream Reader — due out this summer — Bell splits the difference between The Wytches’ wiry raggedness and the gentler side dictated by both the setting and his instrument. Surrounded by a small throng of locals and their kids, Bell proved worthy of the most bucolic setting he’s likely to play this year.
He plays three songs and you can certainly hear the heaviness implied in his guitar strumming. His voice also strains as he sings-perhaps more notable in this quieter version?
“Wide At Midnight” There’s some pretty picking on this song and his voice sounds a but like Billy Corgan’s but far less annoying.
It’s a pretty weird audience for him, no doubt. Minimal clapping and lots of kids on laps.
“Crying Clown” features these lyrics
In his car she finally
Tampers with her sexuality
Scratching at each other’s minds till their in the nude
As for me, my loyalty
Is only sold illegally
To the pantomime crying clown
Cry for me whilst upside down
Salivating, bloody mouth
Or passionately bloody mouth
And graveyard girl, swinging a bag like a pendulum
which is very funny to see him singing in front of a bunch of moms sitting in a semicircle around him.
“All Of My Skin” has a lovely melody and some excellent guitar playing. There’s some clever lyrics as well.
The amazing thing to me is that Kristian looks to be about 15 years old. I wonder how old he actually is, because he handles himself like a pro.
[READ: January 22, 2018] “Is That You, Sister Marguerite?”
This excerpt is quite dark and rather disturbing.
A woman in a convent is asking Sister Marguerite about her newborn baby.
Sister Marguerite tells her that the baby died.
The woman asks if she can hold her dead baby for one minute. Sister Marguerite is shocked by this and says it’s impossible. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 