BELL @ The First Unitarian Church

BELL
@ The First Unitarian Church
4/26/09
www.myspace.com/whoisbell

It’s safe to say that little could make a Sunday trip to church more exciting than a bling-dripping chanteuse rockin’ a keytar. Olga Bell, Russia-born Brooklynite, found herself in the AC-free chapel of Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church on a sweaty Sunday evening between her two-piece percussion section, performing something along the lines of an epic synthetic opera. The chapel, adorned with gold filigree and stained glass windows, housed Bell’s eccentrically expressive vocals (more than slightly reminiscent of Bjork), which coated the room as Jason Nazary and Gunnar Olsen pounded away at drums, traditional and electronic, culminating in a beautifully avant-garde brand of electro pop . The chapel shook as the trio stomped and clapped their way through “ECHINACEA” and “Eat Seeds” provided an aesthetically endearing singer/songwriter musicality far more intriguingly postmodern than anything likely to be found on VH1’s “Artist to Watch.” The band manages to blend hipster irony with sincere musicality: rhythmically-blinking plastic drums collided with classical soprano in a way that would’ve brought Brecht to a blissfully violent climax. Izzy Cihak