Trembling Bells

Trembling Bells, hailing from Glasgow, weave country, classic rock, metal and Latin elements into their British folk base with the same ease that marks their partnerships alongside Kaleidoscope, the Incredible String Band and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. In 2008 drummer Alex Neilson—an improviser whose résumé includes Jandek and Current 93—assembled the group to pursue more structured, song-oriented work. He enlisted vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Lavinia Blackwall, previously a colleague in Directing Hand; bassist/vocalist Simon Shaw, also of Lucky Luke; and guitarist/harmonica player Ben Reynolds, a Motor Ghost alum and solo performer. This roster unveiled its first album, Carbeth, on Honest Jon’s Records in April 2009. Blackwall’s clear soprano and the ensemble’s acoustic emphasis earned praise and drew parallels to Pentangle, Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band and other leading British folk figures of the 1960s and 1970s, prompting an invitation to an Incredible String Band tribute concert at London’s Barbican shortly after the album’s release. Co-produced with Belle & Sebastian’s Stevie Jackson, 2010’s Abandoned Love brought guitarist/vocalist Mike Hastings into the lineup and broadened the palette with medieval, country and classic-rock touches. The following year yielded the more psychedelic The Constant Pageant, while Marble Downs—a collection of duets between Blackwall and Will Oldham—appeared in April 2012. After the 2013 side project the Crying Lion, in which Neilson and Blackwall joined the a cappella ensemble Muldoon’s Picnic for a program of choral pieces, the band returned with its fifth album, 2015’s The Sovereign Self. Its explorations of British folk and psych continued the next year on the eight-song mini-album Wide Majestic Aire, conceived as a companion to The Sovereign Self. October 2016 brought the live EP The Bonnie Bells of Oxford, captured during a tour with Bonnie “Prince” Billy. On 2018’s full-length Dungeness the group further widened its scope by folding in stoner rock, Latin and Middle Eastern flavors.