COLLAPSE BOARD

Spotlight (Brisbane) – 47: The Bell Divers

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.

When I sing, my double chin trembles with emotion every time.

Listening back to June, July (which you can download for free from their website or alternatively pay for if you enjoy what you hear) I realise why I’m so endeared to their music. Each song betrays meticulous crafting. Melodies interweave with the narrative. Often the songs end abruptly, a curious tactic but one that makes sense as you progress through the record, each song being a fleeting glimpse at certain facets of life that can seem so unfamiliar.

The songs on their debut work so well on both literal and metaphorical levels. Among meandering ballads, such as “What Have You Done to My Heart?”, “Little Breath” and “As Bad As We Can Be”, are more jangly pop numbers such as “Fallen Down”, “It’s Who You Love” and “Window View”. It’s a complete story, filled with joy and reflection. The breeziness of the guitar lines often turns your mind away from the sinister undertones that permeate the lyrics. For instance, on “Homeless Man”, Toghill tells a story of a vagrant, offered shelter, only to find out the price of such apparent generosity.

I’ll be leaning in; I’ll be whispering, wicked things in your ear.

The band have been relatively absent from the live music scene since the release of their debut record. There have been occasional shows here and there, but a changing has meant some discontinuity. However, Toghill and Lobb have been joined by Stew Duff on drums and Jane Elliott on bass guitar and are busy preparing new material.

Fell in love at sea, I was 50, he was 53.

Talking to Matthew, he reveals what the group are currently doing and how the songs evolves…

“We simply meet up every Monday night at one of those industrial estate jam sheds where slick metal bands go, and we learn all the quiet new songs Clinton’s been writing. Clinton writes one song a month. At the start of every month, I send him a sentence and he uses that as the starting point for a tune, although the sentence is never literally incorporated into the lyrics, it’s just something to spark an idea.”

…and how the newer songs are developing…

“I’m excited by some of our new songs. I’d describe the ones I like best as pretty slow and atmospheric, with a sort of minimalism and groovy rhythm that’s quite new to us. A lot of our old stuff was sparse, but there’s not quite so many interweaving melodies any more. In its stead are only flashes of melody and, hopefully without blanding out, a bit more mood. The songs are also peopled with Clinton’s usual array of ordinary and slightly lost characters. Working titles include: ‘At the Wedding’, ‘Maniacs in Love’, ‘Spit Out the Day’, ‘The Weight of the Sun’, ‘Pin-drop Eyes’, ‘Why is it Somebody Else?’, ‘Cruelty’, ‘Don’t Be Scared’, ‘Nine Times Out of Ten’, and there’re some others too which I can’t think of…”

…and what the future may hold for the band…

“Our plans are the usual ones bands make: we’re going to keep jamming for a few more months and then start to play shows toward the end of the year, at which time we’ll also be working on a new album. There’s talk of having June, July released on vinyl also – some friends/benefactors want to do that, which hopefully will also mean the new and as-yet unmade album will be on record.”

Matthew also had some interesting things to say about influences and what music is inspiring his own songwriting,

“I feel like there’s not a lot of forward-thinking guitar-based music being made anywhere at the moment, so I mostly listen to old classic rock and, I guess mostly from the early Noughties, dance music at the moment. I don’t know to what extent you could call any of that stuff an influence on the band, but being a fan of a lot of older popular ‘rock’, in its broad sense, helps me to come up with ideas for guitar stuff when I’m otherwise stuck. Usually it’s nothing overt though, and I don’t try to copy other sounds, so influences (upon me, as I can’t speak for anyone else) are genuinely a little hard to call out. I like a lot of the guitar parts my pal Trevor Ludlow comes up with, so that’s probably an influence. My favourite Brisbane-bred song is maybe ‘Bachelor Kisses’, but because we’ve been compared to The Go-Betweens, I do shy away from thinking up parts that might draw further comparisons. So that’s a negative influence in a way.”

An interesting appraisal, considering that this city seems to become more and more aware of its musical heritage, particularly with the legacy of The Go-Betweens being applied to bands, artists and infrastructure with increasing abandon (am I being too cynical here?). Regardless, The Bell Divers are back performing in December, playing at The Zoo. I the meantime recommend having a listen to June, July available for free from The Bell Divers’ website.

The group also run a blog.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 3:08 pm. It is filed under Columns and tagged with Brisbane, The Bell Divers, The Fauves, The Go-Betweens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.