Michael Brook » Works » Solo » Bellcurve
Bellcurve
(Canadian Rational/bigHelium, 2007)
- Reintroduction
- Strangeprocession II
- Darkerroom Instrumental
- Scissorspaperrock
- Lightstar II
- Tangerine II
- Even Doges in the Wild
- Want II
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Michael Brook’s BellCurve is best defined as a companion
piece to his 2006 album RockPaperScissors. Originally conceived
as an ambient version of the latter album, the new work took on
a life of its own in the hands of English producer James Hood. The
resulting eight tracks evoke, each one in its own way, both the instrumental essence of RockPaperScissors’
song structures and something altogether more atmospheric. Brook’s
guitars and synthetic textures mesh with choirs and orchestral accompaniments
Eastern Europe in the gold-toned, reverberant ambiance conjured
by producer/remixer Hood. A singular atmosphere pervades BellCurve,
one that energizes in the same moment as it fosters contemplative
states.
Hood, whose deft touch previously
graced recordings by the Pretenders and Moodswings, was already
familiar with RockPaperScissors. “I knew that album well, so my intention was to
cross-pollinate between the tracks, using the vast amount of music
that Michael had provided me. My initial directive was to create
an ambient album from this material. There’s ‘ambient’ in Brian
Eno’s sense of the term, and then there’s the approach that I chose
for BellCurve, with Michael’s
encouragement. I would add more bass content and subtle beats, creating
an overall psychedelic vibe, so that the results might resemble
the records considered ‘ambient’ in Europe, the downtempo music
that people use to chill out after being in dance clubs.”
The first two months of
the project saw Hood working on his own, deepening his involvement with the integral components of
RockPaperScissors. After
working without supervision for a lengthy stretch, Hood called Michael
over to approve the direction – which by this point had become not
so much a remix as a re-imagining of the original material - that
the album was taking. “I was enjoying the process of deconstruction
and reconstruction, not knowing what Michael’s favorite bits were.
I just what created new tracks that turned me on; it was the sound
of his music being pulled to pieces. What I love doing is constructing
albums that run seamlessly from start to finish. When Michael heard
this, he said it was like viewing the Macy’s Parade on acid, otherworldly
pieces approaching slowly, coming past you and dissolving into the
distance.”
As it happened, Hood didn’t
have to worry about Michael’s response. “He made some notes, which
amounted to telling me that I should be more extreme in my approach
to his music. And that was
how I proceeded.” Melodies of Hood’s own construction then began
to evolve as his work on the project intensified. When new chords
or other forms of ambient sound were needed to complete a new progression
created for BellCurve,
Michael became an active participant in the making of the album.
James would request guitar chords and melodies as needed, which
Michael would then perform in his own studio. Michael’s wife, violinist
Julie Rogers, also contributed string parts to the new mix; the
new guitar and violin tracks would subsequently wend
their way back to the remixer’s studio via internet.
Of his experience making
BellCurve, James Hood reflects “I very much doubt that I’ll get
another project anytime soon where I’m allowed to do whatever I’ve
wanted, and to have such superb music to do it to. I kept waiting
for reality to strike, as it was too good to be true in many regards:
the combination of not having any interference from the artist,
and then to have Michael’s help when I’d painted myself into a musical
corner and required something that he hadn’t recorded yet. [It was]
Very exciting, to hear Michael playing something that I’d
only imagined during my experimenting with his tracks.”
What James Hood imagined,
and ultimately realized with Michael Brook’s input, now exists as
an assured work in its own right. Though the DNA of RockPaperScissors
may be readily detected throughout BellCurve,
the latter album has assumed a shape and purpose of
its own; whether used as a palliative to stress or as the optimum
setting for meditative practice, the cinematic shadings of BellCurve compliment any variety of settings and moods.
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