Ones to Watch: Bell
17/7/08
She’s drawn early comparisons to a young Bjork, yet she grew up in Moscow and Alaska, far from Bjork’s native Iceland. Still, her voice echoes one of electronica’s leading artists. But she’s also created her own identity with her voice. Simply put, it’s stunning.
“For me and my tastes and sounds, (Bjork’s) the best comparison I can hope for. I love Bjork’s music, so to a degree it’s pretty natural to recognize your influences, especially when you’re beginning,” Bell said. “It’s an honor.”
Comparisons between the two escalated when Bell covered Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” for a Bjork cover album released earlier this year by the music blog Stereogum.
“It’s funny because there were so many people shaking their finger at me, being like ‘You’re going to get even more comparisons now. You really shouldn’t do this.’ I thought, not only is this an awesome opportunity, but I thought that actually doing a Bjork song I’d make a wormhole in space and come out the other side, and it was my own little take on it,” Bell said. “I remember telling someone who said, ‘You really shouldn’t do this.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to make a hole into the space-time continuum where I’m going to dive into all these Bjork comparisons, and I’ll come out the other side.’”
And that’s exactly what happened to Olga Bell. Once a classically trained pianist, who began playing the black and white keys at age seven, Bell wound up at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Over the past few years, Bell has worked on putting together tracks, posting them on her MySpace page. They immediately drew attention. Her alluring and addictive voice backed by her piano arrangements and superb programming churned out her five-song EP. She did this all without a record label.
“One thing I think I had the great luxury in making this by myself, I sort of could use anything I could afford, and it could fulfill this vision I had, and of course the vision is shaped by your technology know-how and your budget capabilities,” she said. “All things considered, I’m quite happy with the result, and I’m also even happier with the experience, and everything I learned, looking over the engineers shoulders when you’re mixing, the whole recording process, taking a more producer role. I did the artwork with friend Alex, who’s a great photographer. It sounds like a middle of the road thing to say, but it was an awesome experience.”
Bell’s music hasn’t completely gone unnoticed. Spin magazine praised her, and some record execs have starting salivating over her brilliant music.
“There has been attention from labels, and it’s so interesting,” she said. “It’s kind of like dating where they’re like, what have you done, what are your plans. And you’re like, well, here’s what I’ve sort of done, but what do you see the plan as and what have you done. Everyone’s a little bit pensive and checking each other out. I guess I go back on forth on whether a label is really necessary. I think it’s sort of like, aside from the financial aspect of it, it’s like moral support. Ideally you’re working with people who are genuine about it, then there are people who are a team for you.”
Musically speaking, Bell’s transformation from strictly playing the piano to singing and learning about the side of sampling and musical experimentation.
“At first I was convinced that I was diverging from a classical piano career route,” Bell said. “I had this giant chip on my shoulder that I’m throwing away four pretty expensive years going to the Conservatory, but I was playing piano since I was seven.”
Bell said she didn’t quite know how to break the news to her mother, who previously wanted her daughter to play the piano. But Bell said her mother approved. Yet it’s still a subject Bell and her mother discuss to this day.
“I always still bring it up to my mom, you know,” she said. “ ‘Are you OK with the fact that I’m not a classical pianist,’ and she’s like, ‘Look, this whole music thing is for you to figure out what you need to be doing and what will make you happy and make use of your personal resources, then you just do it.’”
The pressure to become a classically trained pianist may have begun in her native Russia. Bell was born in Moscow and lived there until she moved with her mother and her adopted father to Alaska.
When young, aspiring musicians grow up in Moscow, their parents typically encourage them to attend the Moscow Conservatory. If Bell had remained in Moscow long past her 7th birthday, she may have become a product of the esteemed institution, one that has trained classical pianists, composers, vocalists, and violists.
“I got to spend two years at this really great music school, which is like a feeder school to the Moscow Conservatory,” Bell said. “I studied the recorder there with a clarinetist, who was a very reputable clarinet player in Moscow. I remember a few musical lessons.”
Bell has few memories of her life in Moscow. Then again, she moved from Moscow in 1990 to Alaska. In addition to her music lessons, she recalls, of all things to remember, fast food and hot dogs.
“When you think of everything as a child, there are snapshots, they are very vivid, but not terribly drawn out,” she said. “I actually remember standing in line when the first McDonald’s opened. We stood in this gigantic line for three hours, and I remember we finally got our filet of fish or whatever and it was so good. I remember thinking, American food is amazing. I remember the taste of Russian hot dogs, they’re really different from American hot dogs. You boil them. Nobody grills anything.”
After living with her parents in Alaska, Bell wanted to further her musical career and came to the Conservatory in Boston in 2001. She graduated from the Conservatory in 2005. She then moved to Brooklyn.
“Yeah, I went to school in Boston, the wicked good area up there,” she said. “I feel really lucky to sort of wound up there. Overall it teaches you something much more than what your there specifically to do. I think my experience at the Conservatory opened me up to so many different styles of music. Again, not to discount the really awesome people I studied with privately, but the best experiences there just broaden your ability to take in and process music. Ideally you get exposed to so many different styles and genres and types of performers.”
Although she has no label to call home (just yet), Bell still wants to tour and support her EP, which she sells through her website, olgabell.com.
“I hope that either late summer or early fall I could get a tour going. I hope that all of it materializes,” she said. “I don’t really want to use too much gas. I think it’d be great to get a vehicle where there are some elliptical machines built in where you can charge a battery and work out, so every time you roll into a town, people are like, ‘Whoa you look so svelte,’ and I wouldn’t have had to spend any money on gas.”
To Olga Bell, not having a record label to call home hasn’t affected her passion to continue writing and recording. Music has always been and always will be a major part of her life.
“I think you’ve found what you are meant to be when it really doesn’t feel like work and you don’t want to stop doing it,” she said. “This is my life. This is what’s happening now. The whole reason I started doing this, I get such an emotional rush and a full spectrum of incredible feeling. You want to channel that through yourself and turn it out to people as much as you can.”
Interview by Ryan Wood
www.myspace.com/whoisbell
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