by LORRAINE CARPENTER

From sombre calm to soaring revelry, chamber quintet Bell Orchestre criss-cross the sonic, stylistic, emotional map on their debut LP, Recording a Tape the Colour of Light. Bell Orchestre is Pietro Amato (French horn, electronics), Sarah Neufeld (violin), Kaveh Nabatian (trumpet, melodica), Richard Reed Parry (upright bass, keys, percussion), Stefan Schneider (drums) and occasionally Mike Feurstack (lap steel guitar), almost all music school grads, almost all involved in bands like Torngat, IKS, the Wooden Stars and the Arcade Fire (with whom they recently wrapped an intense five-week tour). The Mirror questioned Nabatian about their beginnings scoring contemporary dance and their magical mountain residency.

Mirror: How did the band get together?

Kaveh Nabatian: It’s a little blurry. We all met through Concordia and we all played together in different groups for a long time. I met Rich in an electroacoustics class and we started this dub noise band with d’bi Young. Then Sarah and I had this crazy band that had tons of keyboards and drums. Then Sarah and Rich started playing this music while I was in Africa and I joined when I came back. We’d always been orbiting around each other.

M: Tell me about working with dancers.

KN: It was really cool, actually. We were improvising with music and the dancers would improvise on the themes, and we would do dance warm-ups and run around like crazy people and then they’d come and sing, all the dancers would play music with us. It was really crazy and exciting.

M: How much direction did you get from the dancers or choreographers?

KN: We’d build [the music] with them, but we were always very free. The fact that we were doing music for dance or theatre made us work in a certain way, and that definitely influenced how we still play. The template for how music is created with these five people was there, that way of telling a story and being really dynamic about things. It’s definitely not verse-chorus-verse structures. It follows its own story. Now, there’s not necessarily a dance or a film playing, or images going through our heads while we’re playing, but a lot of our music lends itself really well to dance or film. We get requests all the time to use our music in films and stuff.

M: I understand you finished off the album at the Banff Arts Centre. What was that experience like?

KN: It’s really amazing. As musicians, you’re not treated that well by the world, but there, you’re like a CEO. Your bed is made for you and there’s a buffet every day. The best thing was that we had this beautiful studio with massive windows, two grand pianos, a harpsichord, keyboards and all the mics we wanted, and elk would look in and hang out with us while we were playing. It’s just so magical. Also, we had all been in these different spaces—Rich and Sarah had just gotten back from Arcade Fire madness—so of course it gave us time to work on new compositions and clean our recordings up, but it was also really important as far as figuring out where the band was going.

With the Clogs and Snailhouse at Théâtre Plaza on Thursday, Nov. 10, 9 p.m., $13.50

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