LiveOne
Though descending from a long line of British oddball, pop mavericks, Glasgow five-piece Trembling Bells stood out as particularly unique gang of kaftan-wearing, psych-folk eccentrics when they emerged in 2008. Drummer/singer Alex Neilson originally made his name touring with Alasdair Roberts, Bonnie Prince Billie, Jandek and Isobel Campbell, before teaming up with the classically trained vocalist Lavinia Blackwell, bass player Simon Shaw and guitarists Michael Hastings and Alasdair Mitchell to flesh out his own fantastical, musical ideas. Early albums 'Carbeth' and 'Abandoned Love' drew obvious comparisons to the likes of Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention but, beyond the witchy, eerie, medieval melodies, the band also wandered off on freaky prog rock jams and gave nods to the jangly DIY sound of the 1980s Scottish indie scene. They went on to collaborate with Bonnie Prince Billie on albums 'The Marble Downs' and 'The Bonnie Bells of Oxford', but it was the trippy Celtic-prog weirdness of 2015's 'The Sovereign Self' that established them as free-wheeling, cult gems of the UK music scene and gained them praise from the likes of Paul Weller, Stewart Lee, Joe Boyd and Damon Albarn. Neilson also embarked on various side projects and played on Shirley Collins' comeback album 'Lodestar', but the band returned in 2018 with 'Dungeness', a typically sprawling odyssey, full of dreamy, psychedelic harmonies, space-rock grooves, freak-beat outbursts and sinister Wicker Man vibes.
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