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Alpinisms

by

School of Seven Bells

 
Alpinisms
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Avg: 4.0 (164 ratings)

A big, bold electronic pop debut

  • We Say...

    Review by Alex Naidus

    It's not a big surprise that Ghostly up-and-comers School of Seven Bells toured with Blonde Redhead. Both groups share a readiness to layer thick gauze over their big, booming compositions — to thrilling, dizzying effect. Despite clearly having knelt at the altar of the seminal 4AD dream-pop sound, SOSB aren't content to twiddle with pedals or navel-gaze. Rather than getting lost gazing skyward, there's clearly a push here to look forward. Alpinisms chirps and throbs with chattering drum machines and jumpy electronic pulses — syncopated, almost-Afrobeat rhythms and trippy, layered compositions ensure that their debut full-length sounds not just pretty, but engaging.

    Neither of this trio's former bands — the twinkly On!Air!Library! and the raucous rockers Secret Machines — have the kitchen-sink exuberance of Seven Bells' sound. They jump right into it with "Face to Face on High Places," a big, joyous, near-tropical stomp and the stuttering, glistening "Half Asleep," which features soaring harmonies from the Bells' singing twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. To listen to Alpinisms is to catalogue a distinctly restless, creative energy. Big, pillowy keyboards, hurried shakers, gangs of bouncing-around vocals — never a dull moment. The back half of the album settles itself into a slightly less-manic groove, coming down from the 11-minute sprawl of "Sempiternal/Amaranth" with "Chain"'s squiggly, auto-tuned electro-pop. With their first full album coming almost four years after the trio first began collaborating, it's clear that they wanted to load Alpinisms with ideas. Luckily, all of those ideas are great ones.

  • They Say...

    Review by Andy Kellman, All Music Guide

    Ben Curtis' desertion of Secret Machines and the breakup of On!Air!Library! was justified by this group's first single, a sky-gliding confection that modernized the sighing, swirling, private-dancefloor sides of Medicine, Seefeel, and My Bloody Valentine. Included as the finale on Alpinisms, the debut album from Curtis and O!A!L!'s singing Deheza twins, "My Cabal" has the feel of a bonus track; the later recordings that precede it, despite remaining squarely within the domain of late '80s/early '90s dream-pop in terms of inspiration, are relatively individualist, going well beyond the lucid psychedelia and discreet flickers of Afro-beat and contemporary pop. What pushes these songs past mere worship involves cunning collisions of robust rhythm, caressing noise, and heavenly melody, with each element equally crucial. Good shoegaze/dream-pop bands mastered one of them; the most exceptional of the heap, like this group, had all three down. The most striking example here is "Wired for Light," seemingly spawned by Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Peek-A-Boo" and M/A/R/R/S' "Anitina," full of clacking percussion that rattles the ribs, Middle Eastern accents, gale-force atmospherics, and layered vocals that could be casting a spell. Other than a trip on the Krautrock railway to oblivion that occurs throughout the 12-minute "Sempiternal/Amaranth," not much resembles any of the members' past work. The Dehezas have found their true calling, their voices a better match for these crisp supernatural bliss-outs than the jagged, thorny sound of their former band. Unsurprisingly, there's a touch of otherness to the lyrics, apparently written as communications between (evidently English speaking) members of a mythical pickpocketing academy -- called School of Seven Bells -- located in Colombia. No, you wouldn't know it without being told, and though most of the words can be made out, they're secondary to the sound of the absorbing voices swarming throughout these impossibly vibrant songs.

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