Bellows

Bellows functions as the creative vehicle for the melodic and wistful bedroom pop crafted by songwriter and guitarist Oliver Kalb. Born in New York City, Kalb introduced the Bellows moniker through his involvement with the Epoch, a Brooklyn arts collective that also encompassed Eskimeaux (Gabrielle Smith), Told Slant (Felix Walworth), and Sharpless (Jack Greenleaf), among additional participants. The collective's members routinely join forces both during tours and in studio sessions to advance one another's individual songwriting endeavors.

Bellows' first full-length album, As If to Say I Hate Daylight, came together through home recording using a single microphone and contributions from Eskimeaux, Told Slant, and Small Wonder (Henry Crawford) during spring 2011, before appearing via self-release that August. Late 2012 brought the follow-up EP New Clothing. The second LP, Blue Breath, reached listeners in 2014 and incorporated the four previously mentioned participants along with Florist (Emily Sprague). While maintaining an active tour schedule in support of both his catalog and projects by his circle of fellow musicians, Kalb put out the eight-track EP May 5 to 12 Songs, composed and captured sequentially across those specific dates in 2015. During the same week, NPR issued the earlier-recorded Bellows Tiny Desk concert, as Bob Boilen highlighted Blue Breath among his Top 20 albums from the prior year.

With Smith, Walworth, and Crawford providing accompaniment, Bellows performed a session for Audiotree Live in 2016; that September, Double Double Whammy issued the third album, Fist & Palm, which centers on the dissolution of a friendship. Following a move to Topshelf Records, Bellows delivered The Rose Gardener in 2019, an effort that enlisted six collaborators, among them Smith, whose own project had by then become known as Gabby's World.