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School of Seven Bells is Good for Parties [Not So Good for Children]


Parkcow, author and intellectual, puffs his cedar pipe on this calm mid-summer eve and musters his creative command of the English language to describe Psychedelic Electronica trio School of Seven Bells thusly: "they are pretty good."

When Jamie asked me to guest review the band School of Seven Bells, I must admit that I had rather mixed feelings. On the one hand, he threw out the qualifier “bit of an expert in the arena” in reference to the band’s electronica nature. It’s not often that I can claim to be a bit of an expert on anything (except Blue’s Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba, and, most depressing of all, the Teletubbies since I spend far too great a portion of my day watching these shows with my toddler), so I was naturally flattered and instantly turned on to the idea of doing something involving music that didn’t have an endlessly repeating, positive reinforcement message like “we’re really smart” (this coming after the solving of Blue’s Clues, which anyone familiar with the show will know—and I take great umbrage at songs like this because I know my toddler isn’t really smart, he’s got a stream of snot running straight from his nose into his mouth and he regularly hits himself on the head with whatever he picks up, neither of which I would actively recognize as signs of high intelligence. Admittedly, by saying WE’RE really smart, they leave a shadow of doubt about my toddler’s role in the whole venture, but his inclusion is still implied, and I find that strangely off-putting. But not NEARLY as off-putting as the way Dora and Diego and several other characters keep asking my kid questions and then responding to the answer before my kid even has a chance to gurgle on his own snot bubbles. That just seems rude to me. But I digress.) On the other hand, when I went to the band’s MySpace page, I was a little apprehensive about the task at hand. The name of the album the first song came from was called Suicide Squeeze (at least I THINK that’s what it’s from. It may have been Suicide Squeeze, the label. Who knows?). This name smacked a little too unpleasantly of emo or goth for my tastes. But I gave them a listen all the same because I am a swell guy, and I’m willing to give a band the benefit of the doubt. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by the music.

Amazon classifies them as “indie” and “psychedelic.” Obviously they’re indie. Duh. That classification is completely useless anymore. “Psychedelic,” however, was not one that I had heard before. First, I should qualify the classification Electronica by saying that I can’t really qualify it well at all. It’s a rather tough one to pin down, actually, because it’s umbrella is considerable. I recommend doing a little reading if you really want to understand it well. I, on the other hand, don’t have the time or interest to understand much of anything well these days. I’m happy to say that, all I know is I like it.

School of Seven Bells, in places, stands above the Electronica classification, and the vocals can often be described as “haunting” or “lilting” or “indecipherable” or “not really vocals but weird noises remixed into something sounding like words.” And that sort of stuff piques my musical interests. The term psychedelic, though, was a new one to me, so I was intrigued by the concept.

Sadly, my inherent laziness has forced me to NOT look up a good definition of “psychedelic” as it is used in musical reference. But if SoSB is an example of psychedelic electronica, then I might just be interested enough to try to find other forms of the genre. And, honestly, I couldn’t think of a word that better described what I heard on their MySpace page. Listening to their music was the aural equivalent of watching De-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” video with the sound turned off. And, yes, I know, that reference is about as dated as it can be, but it’s all I can draw on because I haven’t watched a music video on purpose since some time in the early 90s when cable TV fist became an option to me and MTV was an entirely novel concept. School of Seven Bells' (the name is a reference to a pickpocket training academy, apparently, which I also find vaguely interesting in a nerdy, played-to-much-D&D-in-high-school-and-college-sort-of-way) music was swirly and colorful and every song they had on their page was unique and distinct. So, I think “psychedelic” is a pretty nice box to shove them in. Usually, I would try to play my musical procreation game (it’s like William Shatner and Terrence Trent D’Arby had a baby and Clint Black raised the baby—which would probably be a TERRIBLE band) to help describe what the music sounded like, but School doesn’t really fit any frame of reference that I have at my mental disposal right now. That alone probably says something about them.

My end critique of the band is this: they are pretty good. I’m not sure that I’d rush out to buy their CD because I tend to prefer music that I can sing to in the car, and I’m not sure I’d be able to figure out their lyrics well enough to muddle through them while driving. However, it would make some really great background music if I were the type of person to throw big, weird, artsy fartsy parties where everyone discusses post-modernism and eats brie and soy crackers while sipping Chateau Latour (with the intention of enjoying the wine and not getting smashed). Since I’m not that type of person, I can’t really think of a fitting use for the music. But I highly recommend it for anyone who DOES throw those types of parties (or who likes to think that they’re the type of person who would throw that type of party) or for anyone who likes to put music on in the car that will prompt occasional passengers into asking questions like “what the hell are you listening to?” All in all, I would give them three and a half De-Lites out of five.

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