Trembling Bells featuring Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – The Marble Downs

Trembling Bells bring a marked departure from recent Will Oldham-involved projects, with a sound that’s a brimming-over the cup of baroque. Their infusion of psychedelia and folk is the stuff of an LSD trip around the Maypole, while the input of the ‘Prince’ is his trademark voice of faltering longing. The union’s success brings the best parts of each act together, and creates something novel, something that might not have otherwise been possible had the two not conspired so.

Oldham brings vocalist Lavinia Blackwall’s soaring, whimsical and operatic voice down to earth; it’s a perfect marriage of harmony. It’s full of staccato piano, protracted, reverberating guitars, and heavy brass over constantly evolving drums; it is frenetic, uplifting and joyful, despite the pessimistic, damning indictments of love and hope in Love is a Velvet Noose and Ain’t Nothing Wrong With a Little Longing. It's an unforgiving record, and not for the faint-of-heart.