The two met while at a Danish music festival in 2004, and after realizing each was the fan of the others’ work, they began working on "melodic, but experimental" material at Brian’s LA studio in March of 2008. They announced the Broken Bells project September 29, 2009.
On December 14, they e-mailed fans a binary-coded message stating “the ‘High Road’ is hard to find” with a link to their website. We learned later that “High Road” referred to a free single download available on their site. (Click here to check out the video for the song.)
Anyway, Todd Martens of the Los Angeles Times described Broken Bells’ debut live performance as “slow, trippy…background harmonies” that managed “to sound familiar yet contemporary, like the uncovering of a vintage album given some modern electronic flourishes. Or, to use a musical reference point, a more soulful take on the folksy-electro sound used to great effect by The Beta Band.”
[image-1]Their self-titled debut was released yesterday, March 09, 2010.
Click here to listen to the album in its entirety. Click here to listen to an Bob Boilen interview from March 08, 2010. Click here for part one and here for part two of an NME interview on youtube. Visit the band’s myspace page here and website here.
Check here to see if Broken Bells has any gigs scheduled near you.
As always, whenever possible, please buy your music from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like Wal-Mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-Tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand). Incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the United States. That my friend, bites.
Broken Bells is perfect.
If you agree, please visit wednesday-music.com! Then, join the once weekly (on Wednesday) mailing list or better yet, join the pep squad and get tons of free junk (actually, just wednesday-music stickers and pencils- but really great stickers and pencils).
[image-2]
Ambient pop duo Broken Bells features Brian Burton (producer, organ, drums, piano, synths, bass) and James Mercer (vocals, guitar). Outside of their context, these names may not mean a lot, but what if I were to tell you that Brian is otherwise known as Danger Mouse? Yes, that Danger Mouse: of Gnarls Barkley and the producer for Gorillaz, The Black Keys, Beck, The Rapture, and the late Sparklehorse, among others. You can find James performing at his day job as lead vocalist and guitarist for another great band, The Shins.
Not a bad combo and both members agree that this is not a one-off thing; they are in it for the long run.
According to Spin’s Kevin Bronson, “Broken Bells' broad sonic palette yields an arrestingly cinematic and choral take on guitar balladry, electro-pop, and white soul.” He went on to compare Broken Bells to another super talented collaboration, The Postal Service. Except he said, “what Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello were to your bedroom, [Brian] and [James] are to the heavens.”
Since 1988, CL Tampa Bay has served as the free, independent voice of Tampa Bay, and we want to keep it that way.
Becoming a CL Tampa Bay Supporter for as little as $5 a month allows us to continue offering readers access to our coverage of local news, food, nightlife, events, and culture with no paywalls.
