Precept by pluto bell

Pluto Bell’s work tends toward the pensive while exploring points of interest as disparate as Samuel Beckett texts, lap steel guitars, twenty toy synth pianos acquired from eBay for a dollar each, Christina Kubisch’s Electromagnetic induction headphones, and steel drums. Having developed a distinct style and approach to composition, they have made a niche for themself in the Los Angeles experimental music scene. The soundscapes that are their longer pieces often careen between placid, moody atmospheres and anxiety-inducing, piquing dissonance. All that said, Precept is, in a way, a first for them.

Precept finds Bell betraying their foundation in experimental music and composition, instead intuitively building texture upon pop song forms. Their releases thus far, 2+/1- and Moving Like Icebergs Against Each Other b/w Sucking Stones, were written for chamber ensembles of unique instrumentation and each consist of two long-form pieces. Precept, on the other hand, has a typical rock band structure (two guitars, bass and drums) as a foundation, which Bell supplements with a bassoon, electronic feedback systems, synthesizer, drum machine, and pump organ. The result is a set of small, loose recordings that are tactile and impressionistic. They urge different states of listening at different times: lyrical, ambient, hallucinatory, subsumed. The songs approach melodies that one might hum later if only they could get a good enough grasp.

Imagine inverse results than those of pop-rock masters who have dipped their toes into the experimental world (Radiohead, Wilco, and Talk Talk come to mind as a few notable counterexamples to Bell’s work). Instead, Bell approaches the pop-rock world from the other side, all the while maintaining some precaution. However, they are not detached, their voice here is sincere and direct. One could place Precept amidst works by a growing cannon of women at the crossroads of pop and experimental music formulating and enacting new identities and roles for women in music overall. Pluto Bell contributes to this overlap and in turn uses the space to explore vulnerability, intimacy, dissonance, and emptiness."

– Leah B. Levinson

pluto bell

Los Angeles-based

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