Rachel's The Sea and the Bells Reviewed By Paul Lester in the Melody Maker, 26th October 1996. "If in doubt, bring on the strings," quipped on Maker wag on hearing the trio of symphonic ballads that end Suede's "Coming Up" LP, as if to suggest that orchestras were the last refuge of the imaginatively exhausted pop musician, the last resort for the cynical tactician with one finger on the button marked "emote control". These days, everyone from the Tindersticks to Cast drench their songs in strings. "The Sea and the Bells", though, is far removed from traditional notions of the ornately embellished rock record. In fact, it's about as close to a classical recording as you're going to get from a group of twentysomethings from Louisville, one of whom, Jason Noble, used to be in Rodan (who formed out of the ashes of Slint - the latter featuring a future member of Tortoise), another of whom (engineer Bob Weston) plays bass in Steve Albini's Shellac. Rachel's first album, "Handwriting" (1995), got called neo-classical, or pseudo-classical, or sorta-classical, in that it allied classical music instrumentation to all manner of samples, tapes, and avant garde effects. "Music For Egon Schiele", released earlier this year on Quarterstick (home of Henry Rollins), was a simpler affair, featuring just piano, cello and viola. "The Sea And The Bells" revisits the modern or experimental classical terrain of "Handwriting". Titled after a book by Pablo Neruda - who, like Frederico Garcia Lorca, was a member of Spain's celebrated Generacion De 1927 (keep up at the back!) - this expensive-looking package comes complete with booklet, poetry and one hour's worth of music played on violins, timpani, recorders, vibes and trumpets. Some tracks - "The Voyage Of Camille", "Cypress Branches" - run the gamut of avant styles from Stockhausen to Labradford, others of which are more simply affecting. "Tea Merchants", for example, is like something out of a Merchant Ivory film. Noble adds electric bass to "Lloyd's Register" and guitars to "Sirens", although at no point do you feel you're listening to a rock song, even in an era that has produced something as fabulously fussy as Smog's "Prince Alone In The Studio" - if anything, the screeching violas of "Sirens" recall the nightmare shower scene from Bernard Herrman's soundtrack to "Psycho". File under: beautiful weird shit. ------------------------ Reviewed By Stewart Lee in the UK Sunday Times, 3rd November 1996. ROCK naturally tends towards repetition. So, whenever it dabbles with high culture, it's usually the minimalists who get invited out to party. But Rachel's bring delicate baroque stylings and lush orchestral arrangements to a dynamic post-rock sensibility. The 17-strong line-up mixes musicians from symphony orchestras with the cream of Chicago's avant-rock scene and a creative core, lately, of the impossibly heavy and absurdly ornate Rodan. In the dreadful 1970's, Deep Purple and friends thought if they threw enough sheet music at the studio walls some of it might stick, but The Sea and the Bells, the third Rachel's album, is, thankfully, no Concerto for Group and Orchestra. Leader Jason Noble's continued fascination for all things maritime is here re-expressed through 13 elegant instrumental pieces, a dignified and unprecedentedly beautiful requiem for the days of the clipper ship, a fully fledged work of art that you are unreservedly urged to own. Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 23:30:04 -0800 From: drew schwickerath (schwicke@cs.umass.edu) Subject: reviews for holiday shopping well, i've been meaning to write reviews of the recent additions to my collection of audio media. records. cds. unfortunately i'm pretty well exhausted by the end of semester crunch, so these are pretty short. here is the word. rachel's - the sea and the bells why don't i remember hearing a (imperial) ton of praise for this when it came out? i remember hearing some okay things. someone must come forward to wake people up and tell them "this is wonderful." that someone is me. the packaging is the typical rachel's/one ton press packaging. fragile folded paper and a beautiful booklet. this time with an epic poem. basically the story of a man and a ship and fire and sinking and water and the woman he loves. the album is pretty much a soundtrack for the poem. very nautical. this time we are back to the large ensemble with vibes and such that we heard on handwriting lp, rather than the trio of egon scheile. pretty much more chamber music, but more coherent than handwriting. i think that this is their best album to date and is definitely on my top ten of the year.