{"title":"Less Bells","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"solifuge","title":"Solifuge","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe full-length debut by Julie Carpenter’s \u003cstrong\u003eJoshua Tree\u003c\/strong\u003e, California ambient orchestral project \u003cem\u003eLess Bells\u003c\/em\u003e emerged from the drama and desolation of its high desert origins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe cites certain compositions as being \"\u003cem\u003especifically inspired by August monsoons rolling in over the mountains, others by clear, starry nights\u003c\/em\u003e.\" Utilizing an array of electronic and acoustic instruments, including cello, Optigan, violin, voice, and modular synth, \u003cem\u003eSolifuge\u003c\/em\u003e conflates not only the solitude and refuge of its title but also intimacy and grandeur, fragility and force, \"\u003cem\u003ebuilding from austerity to wild overgrowth\u003c\/em\u003e.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe speaks of a creative process involving cut-ups and rearranging, mapping a melody for strings only to transpose it to synth, or refashioning a rigid classical piece as stream of consciousness soundscape. Carpenter’s versatility and embrace of flux fills these songs with a living, breathing quality, restrained but responsive, adapting to shifting conditions and emotions beneath the surface. CD - With Bonus Track.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Kranky","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50465744552267,"sku":"1042058","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50465746125131,"sku":"1042056","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/01fafd3f-d3e6-48b4-bb2a-651c152f8244_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727295768"},{"product_id":"mourning-jewelry","title":"Mourning Jewelry","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe second offering by Julie Carpenter’s textural orchestral entity Less Bells takes its title from a storied strain of decorative objects worn in remembrance of lost loved ones: \u003ci\u003eMourning Jewelry\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album shares a similar mood of devotional pageantry, stirring ornamental laments born from a need to “create beauty out of grief.” Utilising an amalgam of strings, synthesisers, and choirs, the pieces ascend and descend in grand, glimmering arcs, ebbing from passages of “baroque complexity” to expanses of haunting emptiness. Certain songs also skew more overtly western than ever before, deeply reverbed plucks of banjo refracted against glowing horizons of sunrise drone: Americana gone ambient.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFurthering the music’s mystic intentionality, the track titles comprise “the major arcana of a tarot deck from an alternate universe,” lorded over by the \u003ci\u003eQueen Of Crickets\u003c\/i\u003e, ruler of \u003ci\u003eThe Gates, The Fault, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Fang.\u003c\/i\u003e Even so, the record requires no psychic divination to glean its fragile majesty, its muted tumult of mirage and melody. The beauty it possesses is too blatant, and bountiful.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Kranky","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50473763864907,"sku":"1095561","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/d2bd29ac-421a-40b4-9529-5a967e582852_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727430746"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/less-bells.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}