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PAUL Noonan is my new favourite frontman.
He’s the coolest un-cool tall guy you’ve ever seen,
like a giant version of those multi-jointed toy donkeys
with a button underneath to make them collapse and pop
upright again, operated by his bandmates in Bell
X1 who watch with a smile on their faces as he provides
the perfect front to recommend them to a tired Thursday
night crowd at the Northampton Soundhaus.
Even if he weren’t a cool dancer, though, the songs
would speak for themselves, brimming as they are with
heart and hope and the hedonistic desire of a band who
“want to communicate some of that ‘what-ails-ye’ feeling
while sounding kind of happy.”
They’ve perfected that laudable technique in their homeland
Dublin, where they released their debut ‘Neither
Am I’ in October 2000. Expect a reissue here as
soon as the latest LP Music In Mouth starts flying
off the shelves.
Why am I so convinced everyone will love them? Because
they’re all the best bits of Turin Brakes but
with conviction; because Noonan’s gut feeling spills
into the songs like the tortured wailings of Jeff
Buckley but he smiles while he’s at it; because
they do barely-there folky ballads as well as rollicking
soundclashes to rival anything off Kid A; and
because they’re none of these things, they’re just Bell
X1.
They’re clever too – “I’ll see your heart and raise
you mine” sung over and over, encompassing a thousand
emotions in one simple concept.
The forthcoming album title, from a poem by Austin
Clarke, refers to The Planter’s Daughter,
but with a little artistic license could equally convey
the essence of Bell X1, inarticulate as I am to do it
myself.
“When night stirred at sea/And the fire brought a
crowd in/They say that their beauty/Was music in mouth.”
Relevant Sites:
www.bellx1.com/
Natasha House for Crud Magazine 2003©
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