Alpinisms

School of Seven Bells | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 28, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ghostly Int'l
• ASIN: B001CVMDF6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #111,439 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Iamundernodisguise

2. Face to Face on High Places

3. Half Asleep

4. Wired for Light

5. For Kalaja Mari

6. White Elephant Coat

7. Connjur

8. Sempiternal/Amaranth

9. Chain

10. Prince of Peace

11. My Cabal

Editorial Reviews

School of Seven Bells' full-length debut, Alpinisms, is best introduced with a little etymology: Mercurial French author Rene Daumal defined 'alpinism' as 'the art of climbing mountains.' Alpinists are both athletes and mystics. They practice 'pure' climbing, hands gripping the cragged incline sans rope or guide, forcing their bodies ever-upward in the name of earthly enlightenment. 'Alpinisms,' says Daumal enthusiast and guitarist Alejandra Deheza, 'are mountain-climbing songs.' Alpinism is an electronically enhanced Pop record of dizzying highs and claustrophobic lows, whose painstaking conception shows in its detail-laden crevices. On the album's best tracks 'the polyrhythmic dream-pop' of 'Face to Face in High Places'.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Alpinisms November 26, 2008

By Mike Newmark VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

Alpinisms is School of Seven Bells' first CD, but the band members are hardly strangers to music. The guitarist is one Benjamin Curtis, the same guitarist who famously left Secret Machines in 2007 before they produced the stiffest album in their catalogue. Twin sisters Claudia and Alejandra Deheza, the band's vocalists, were singers for the New York City post-punk outfit On!Air!Library!--which sounded as though they'd accidentally stumbled into Fugazi's studio on the way to see the Postal Service. And Claudia Deheza once holed up with Prefuse 73's Guillermo Scott Herren for a sensual, ethnically ambiguous one-off as A Cloud Mireya. Once the personnel found each other (while opening for Interpol) and School of Seven Bells was set in motion, they released two 7" records and collaborated with Prefuse 73 on his EP The Class of 73 Bells in what seemed like an attempt to figure out just what in the heck kind of band they wanted to be.

With Alpinisms, we get an answer: They want to be a dream-pop band. But that's not as simple as it appears on the surface, since modern day dream-pop can subsume shoegaze, twee-pop, and indie electronica, and School of Seven Bells incorporate all of those elements--the cascading guitars, the programmed beats, the sugary melodies grafted from the early `90s that will always remind me of licking a lollipop. It's a sound that, when executed well enough, can cause even the most fair-weather listener to go weak at the knees. School of Seven Bells hit the sweet spot with enough frequency to make Alpinisms worthwhile, and though not every experiment works, it should give those who have been following these musicians around some satisfaction to realize that this is the sort of album they've been waiting so long to create....

School of Seven Bells may have been Curtis's idea, but Alpinisms presents as a Deheza twins vehicle, with Curtis providing an unobtrusive instrumental ballast that borders on egoless. Alejandra and Claudia are so in tune with their own songs, you can practically feel the telepathy operating in their cadences. All of them share songwriting credits, and together they steer the ship in some gorgeous directions. "Connjur" finds the sisters harmonizing like birds gliding higher and lower in the sky, above some Stones-y guitar, a crisp, driving rhythm and a heavenly drone. "Chain" is pure pop confectionery, a twee-pop throwback that makes excellent use of a vocoder. But even more striking is when the song emerges from the sound like cold water splashed in the face. In "For Kalaja Mari", one of the twins sings with forceful clarity, "Walk with me for a while to my house on the hill / Forget where your body lies and I'll forget mine as well / And you have as much hope as you have hopelessness"--and here she grabs our shoulders--"But can you identify just what keeps you down like this?" Who knew this kind of music wouldn't just make us feel, but think?

For all of the tasteful melodicism, Alpinisms essentially orbits around two components: rhythm and voice. The beats resist showboating, but there's usually something interesting and workmanlike nailing the songs to the ground. It's rhythm, in fact, that singlehandedly keeps the 11-minute "Sempiternal/Amaranth" from deliquescing into liquid, a motorik chug (played by Blonde Redhead's Simone Pace) that acts dually as a compass and a coach for the other elements to keep moving. But it's the vocals that stand tall among the mélange and define the record. The Deheza twins are better singers than they really have any right to be: both of them incorporate the perfect amounts of airiness and vibrato, and they sound positively alluring without being outright exotic. They're the sorts of vocalists Dntel would have killed for on Life is Full of Possibilities or hoped to recruit for a full-length collaboration. "Half Asleep"--perhaps the album's trump card--sparkles like a prime Dntel production, where the Dehezas ride waves of shimmering cymbals and careening guitars that nearly swallow them whole.

Alpinisms could have used a few more of those moments, when the sounds overtake each other and induce a sense of blissful surrender. The Dehezas' voices are such strong presences that they call for an equally powerful musical force to push up against them. I think of Sweet Trip's Valerie Cooper--a vocalist remarkably akin to these two--who, at the tail end of "Design : 2 : 3", sings a beautiful skyward melody beneath 100 pounds of shoegaze weight. Still, you have to admire their conviction, and even when the songs don't ring true--there's just no way to salvage the awkward, Native American-tinged "Iamundernodisguise" no matter how hard you try--it's clear that the musicians believe in their art. It's this passion, and the conscientiousness that's required to keep refining and refining in order to get it just right, that could someday elevate this band to greatness.

(This was published in PopMatters on 11/26/08) Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Put away your formulas, they're no good here November 20, 2008

By David M. Madden

Format:MP3 Music

Remember when you weren't so jaded and enjoyed music just because it perks your ears?

Alpinisms is an exciting, largely unique experience, appealing without the need of labels or even listener musical preference. Upfront, you have vocalists Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, flitting from folksy Marianne Faithful to neutral intoned Ladytron style croons to innocent My Bloody Valentineisms (those are still a stretch, but my first description, "Mellifluously opulent peasant style", doesn't really hold water), the duo intimately harmonized with interplay that only two sisters could share. Their virtuosic melodic and lyrical content is a refreshing pause in the world of unmusicality that often taints the indie-rock (yes, that's a label, sue me) world. Underneath, disparate musical textures from all walks of life churn into a somehow inviting mélange, one moment Indian meets recent Depeche Mode ("Wired for Light"), the next, an autotuned "Electric Avenue" slathered with baritone guitars and dumbek accents ("Chain") then into reverb-trails-to-heaven vocals over stripped-down Joy Division rhythms and melancholia ("White Elephant Coat").

Fortunate for the world, Alpinisms is not a continuation of current trends or something you casually put on and dissect. It might take months to figure it out why you enjoy it so much. But I have a good idea to fill that space: just listen.

And I challenge you, once under its spell, to stop humming "Iamundernodisguise".

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Alpinisms makes me smile November 16, 2008

By Geoffrey P. Smith

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I haven't had this much fun listening to an album since the heydays of the Cocteau Twins. Beautiful songcraft, and singing from two gorgeous voices create a mesmerizing listening experience. Ben Curtis cooks up a backdrop of atmospheric soundscapes for the Deheza sisters harmonizing, calling, responding and sounding utterly joyous. Add in the synth-beats and we have dream pop bliss... a splendid debut!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Mix-a-lot Bag of Goodies July 16, 2010

By Gerardo Martinez Casas

Format:Audio CD

I read a review that wrote:"Modern day descendants of Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin, the band is mystical, haunting, and soulful all at once." Well, except for Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin, "the band is mystical, haunting, and soulful all at once." It is actually the rebirth of The Roches with a little Radiohead and Young Marble Giants. No surprises here.

4.0 out of 5 stars Three Albums From The School of Seven Bells July 26, 2012

By Mark Eremite VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

School of Seven Bells was originally a triad composed of Benjamin Curtis and twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. From the get-go, their music has inhabited the static-saturated realm between progressive pop and the more experimental dreamwork that you get from bands typically labelled as "shoe gazers." But "shoe gazing" is far too laconic a term for music that uses complex choral choreography and unexpected harmonies to rein its energy down to a low, but persistent and inescapable, thrum.

Incomprehensible to some, the experimental, rolling structure of both the songs and their lyrics gives this band's work the flavor of horizons, making the tunes seem both gorgeously sculptured but also somehow distant and unembraceable. This is found as much in the names of each album as in the notes and words that are found inside them. Alpinism is supposedly the art of climbing, the culture of ascension. Disconnect from Desire seems to recall the fundamental precept of Buddhist enlightenment -- more ascension. And now Ghostory seems to represent another plane of reality, the passage from the physical plane to a place that is -- yet again -- always there but still out of reach.

I have had the exact same reaction to every album by this band. I have enjoyed every single one -- and recommend that you buy them -- but I have not fallen head over heels for them. They seem to keep listeners at a distance by operating on a sonic level that is nearly as removed and spiritual as their album titles, and although it is by all means beautiful, it is not always touching or touchable. (There's that horizon again....) Each album has delighted me -- and I've discovered three songs on each that I love and have on my regular rotation -- but I have yet to be wooed head over heels by their atmospheric effervescence, their intangible craft.

Alpinisms
One thing I admire about this band is that, apparently, they start with the lyrics and then make music to match it. This attention to the message gives each album the feel of a novel or tale. This album begins with the announcement that "Iamundernodisguise," the insistence that they are what they appear to be and that "solely in my chest is my heart a drum of water." The music encapsulates that bizarre but fuzzy certainty that you get in the space of powerful dreams -- maybe of falling or being chased -- the urge that something is happening or must happen but everything continually moves in slow motion. There's a dichotomy between the up and the down, the high, jittery tones with the low, grinning bass that forces the listener to actively keep up. "I'm sleeping to develop my dreaming skill," begins my favorite track "Wired for Light." "If the space is malleable the contrast must be too. It changes shape with you." My other favorites: "Prince of Peace" and "My Cabal," both of them anthems that again meld defiant music with dark undertones.

Disconnect From Desire
A lot of reviewers argued that this album was overproduced, that the group sold out some of their heart to create a record that kowtowed to slicker, more commercial sensibilities. The music is certainly not as baffling as from Alpinism, but that doesn't make it any more accessible (nor any worse for that matter). I found this album as uplifting and bewildering as their first, and I enjoyed it just as much and in the same measure. It does have a more triumphant sound, a sort of gas-pedal-to-the-floor drive behind the rhythms that is maybe missing from their debut record. In fact, the block of songs composing tracks three through five ("Heart is Strange," "Dust Devil," and "I L U") is one of my favorite chunks of any album in recent years. The rest of the record is as much of a musical road trip, and although that horizon never seems to arrive, it's still a fun ride.

Ghostory
The music matches the cover art. It's light, hazy, and geometric in a way I can't possibly hope to understand. I certainly know how to admire it, though. The loss of one of the twins (Claudia) means that the balletic dip and spin of the band's lyrical harmonies loses some of its organic appeal, but the music is still sweet and gritty in equal measures. In fact, while my favorite tracks from their sophomore album were the most uplifting (or at least insistent), my favorites here sound the most grim, defiant and demanding. You can see as much in the names: "Scavenger," "Show Me Love," and "Low Times." The album still contains that unsettled, unpredictable tendency to switch musical moods midstream, that clever and chaotic mingling of melodies that makes their songs such a delight to listen to. You don't know what's going to come next, but you know you'll appreciate it, like it, maybe even love it.

I feel the same way about their next album. Read more ›