Stirring The Christmas Spirit by belleswillring

We are proud to present to you a special Christmas gift. We wrote a song called Stirring The Christmas Spirit and it’s available as a free download for anyone that wants it. Consider it our answer to all the box sets, best ofs and Boublees that get release this time of year. Hope you like it!

WHAT WE’RE DOING
Crystal Theatre is meant to be played on an old record player in a dark room where the picture painted is of a journey through small towns and deserted roadways. We want to present Crystal Theatre in a deluxe double gatefold sleeve on 180gsm vinyl and you can be a part of the creation.

WHY WE’RE DOING IT
We are a band that gets caught in the mystery and nostalgia of places. When we wrote Crystal Theatre we were thinking of driving great distances through places unfamiliar yet recognisable, of isolation and desolation, of feeling trapped in a lonely town and escaping along vast highways. We were thinking about American films like Easy Rider, Badlands and Vanishing Point while dreaming about dwindling small-town Australia with its proud and deserted main streets, broken-down cars and creek beds lined with Ghost Gums. We imagined these towns and all the different characters that give those towns life. We hoped people would listen to Crystal Theatre on old record players or in junky car stereos. However we don’t make music in a time that generally respects those mediums as much as we used to. To put music on vinyl is expensive and, frankly, not sustainable on smaller scales and so our intentions had to change slightly and while we agree the music would still be able to tell the same stories, the mechanisms for delivery would have to be compromised. And so we released Crystal Theatre on CD and also digitally through places like iTunes and eMusic.

Aidan: ‘Bald Mountain’, begins the third act of Crystal Theatre. Where ‘Come to the Village’ enticed the listener to a satellite town, ‘Bald Mountain’ is a warning to get out, and get back on the road. A steady soul beat urges the vocals and guitars onward as our protagonist gets ready to drive.

Bald Mountain by belleswillring

For a short time only you can listen to Crystal Theatre front to back on Mess and Noise. We’ve also written a track by track walk through for you which might flick the highbeams on the record.

Todays preview is number four on the record. Listen a few times and you’ll develop a swagger

Aidan: This song came out of nowhere while I was making demos for this record. I was in a particularly minimalist mood, and wanted to try to write a song with one chord. I originally sampled a jungle stomp beat fromHarry Connick Jr’s trio, and just carved out this dirty jump-step guitar line for it. Then I imagined Simon and Garfunkel singing over the top of it, and that’s more or less where we took it.

Street Lamp Swamp by belleswillring

One of the last tracks on the record.

Aidan: About as close as we wanted to get to soul on the record. I wrote this as a response to Come to the Village – in a way, it’s like you are driving far far away from the village, because of what had happened there.As the song progresses, you slowly shake off the heavy feeling.

Liam: Recorded the same night as “Deepwater” in the Portland house. It’sa continuation of the cinematic imagery that we were crafting for our “dark road movie” which became this album.

Bald Mountain by belleswillring

For you, for free.

DOWNLOAD ‘THE RIVER (RADIO EDIT)’