Posted April 23, 2020 by Jeff in Tunes
 
 

Belle and Sebastian Enlist Fans’ Help for Project

Protecting the Hive
Protecting the Hive

With the world on lockdown, indie rockers Belle and Sebastian have launched a musical project to help relieve stress. The band recently shared the two-part collaborative project Protecting the Hive.

The project features lyrics contributed by fans at the band’s invitation. Fans submitted lyrics reflecting their thoughts and feelings while in self-isolation.

Belle and Sebastian collated the lyrics into an audio-visual piece narrated alternately by Stuart Murdoch and friend of the band Alessandra Lupo. Kenny MacLeod provided the visual, an aerial view of a deserted sunlit Glasgow during this period.

The second installment, a work-in-progress demo recording based on the same written contributions, arrives on April 24.

“Ok, I’ve got an idea. I come up with lots of tunes but the band aren’t around just now, and I rely on them to turn them into pop,” says Murdoch in a statement. “How about we make a tune together using remote technology? Send me a few sentences or a paragraph, I’ll try to funnel those words into a song, then I’ll record an acoustic version of it and bounce it back to you. Then it’s up to you to do what you want to do with it! You have GarageBand, Zoom, whatever. A collaboration. Someone might be good with tech. Someone might want to sing it. Can you put a rhythm to it? Someone add some organ, some flute! At this point it’s out of my hands.”

The group also recently issued the fourth installment of its new weekly live meditation class hosted by Murdoch.


Jeff

 
Jeff started writing about rock ’n’ roll some 20 years ago when he stood in the pouring rain to hitch hike his way to see R.E.M. on their Life’s Rich Pageant tour. Since that time, he's written for various daily newspapers, alt-weeklies, magazines and websites. Feel free to comment on his posts or suggest music, film and art to him at [email protected].