I’m a sucker for organs, banjos, and bells.

If it is your goal to musically get me to sit up straight and pay attention, throw any one of them in there at the beginning of your track.

The sheer force of an organ is undeniable. I don’t have to stretch beyond two recently popular releases to demonstrate their influence. Coldplay’s “Fix You” grabs my heart from the opening bar and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Marching Bands of Manhattan” sucks me right in.

Banjos are a little more rarely sprinkled than organs. Hearkening back to the fourth set of mathcaddy radio, where I first described the instant joy in hearing Sufjan Stevens‘ “Holland”, I realize that while that song made me take notice of him, it was his beautiful banjo strum on “Transfiguration” that made Sufjan my favorite artist. Then when Evan pulled out a banjo to add some pick-pick-pickin’ to his fun “Maria” recording [see here], I was Pete the Lego Pirate on Christmas!

And then there’s Bells… Ah, bells… And when I say “bells”, I’m going to throw in Xylophones, even though they don’t even come close to musically or visibly counting as bells. A few of my Bell/Xylophone greatest hits include Adem’s”Ringing in My Ear”, Old Canes’ “7th Fret Closer”, and They Might Be Giants’ wildly addicting and aptly titled, “The Bells”. There are actually gobs more than just these songs, but I’m drawing a blank right this instance on more.

So where am I going?

Right here.

John Vanderslice ’s acclaimed album, Pixel Revolt contains the pinnacle of indie rock bellfulness, “Trance Manual”, full of perfectly located harmonies, gently synths, and - you guessed it - wondrously ringing handbells.

Enjoy it.

[mp3 download]

ding, ding… ting, ting… Anyone else know any good songs featuring bells?

Anyone?

Hmm… Just crickets…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 12th, 2005 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.