Bell Orchestre Happily Co-exist With The Arcade Fire

Considering the kind of racket and vocal mayhem that he stirs up with his other band, you'd expect more of the same from Richard Reed Parry no matter what he's doing. If you've seen The Arcade Fire live, then you're certainly aware of the maniacally physical, motorcycle helmet-wearing, boisterous tornado of energy that Parry can be.

But it turns out that Parry knows a thing or two about subtlety and reservation, too. The bespectacled redhead is the leader of new-ish instrumental collective Bell Orchestre, and the fact that this project is completely void of vocals doesn't hinder the music's ability to reach people at all. "Songs may need vocals, but music doesn't need vocals," asserts Parry.

"Music like [Estonian composer] Arvo Part's compositions. Or something like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra or Autechre. I think music can be really amazing or really evocative and get right to the jugular emotionally without having words. It's also not for everybody, but that's OK."

The runaway success of The Arcade Fire presents a two-headed monster of a problem for Parry. On the one hand, music fans will be more inclined to seek out Bell Orchestre's majestic debut, Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light, because of his association. On the other hand, it's not easy splitting time between two bands. "It's kind of insane, but Arcade Fire just stopped touring so we're doing this [mini North Amercian] tour now," says Parry. "It wasn't like we took time out of The Arcade Fire to make the Bell Orchestre record, though, because we kind of made the record simultaneously to making Funeral. It kind of took a little longer, but it was basically made within the same time frame."

Parry originally put Bell Orchestre together in 2001 to play music for contemporary dance while he and his friends were in university. Eventually the Orchestre members realized that they wanted to expand their musical outreach and perform proper shows.The collective have now evolved into a five-piece, with various satellite members offering contributions. Alongside Parry are: violinist Sarah Neufeld (also a full-time member of The Arcade Fire); French horn player Pietro Amato (an occasional member of The Arcade Fire); drummer Stef Schneider; and trumpet player Kaveh Nabatian. Mike Feuerstack of The Wooden Stars also moonlights with the band when he can. Each member brings different philosophies and passions about music to the Orchestre.

"We're not the kind of band that came together and bonded over common influences, really," Parry says. "It wasn't like how a lot of rock bands go, 'Oh, I like Fugazi and you like Wire, let's start a band." It wasn't that at all. It was more like, 'Oh, I know a French horn player who digs Radiohead and Boards Of Canada.' It was more out of knowing someone's a really interesting player and that they come from a neat background, so let's see what happens. It was really based 100 percent on the music that we made and not on a shared ideology or shared influences or anything like that. It was really on what came out when we got together in a room. I feel like that, in and of itself, is going to hold us together for a really long time because it's really about the music and not an external agenda or anything like that."

Recording A Tape The Colour Of The Light places itself directly in the lineage of other post-punk instrumental bands from Montreal (particularly those on the Alien8 label), while adding a decidedly more sweeping, orchestral scope overall. Take a few listens to the slow-build-to-a-crescendo in songs like "Les Lumieres Pt. 1" and it isn't hard to imagine a Bell Orchestre song paired up with Godspeed You! Black Emperor on your iPod.

"We kind of try to hammer every emotion possible out of our songs, so I think for a lot of people it's sort of different," says Parry. "People come away from our shows saying to us they had a wide ranging emotional experience that was really special."

The popularity of The Arcade Fire would lead people to assume that Bell Orchestre are simply a part-time side project for Parry and Neufeld, but the tall redhead is quick to correct that he's just as dedicated to the latter as he is to the former. "Bell Orchestre was a band before The Arcade Fire, we just hadn't put out any records or toured or anything.

"This is something we intend to keep doing for as long as we possibly can. And we're going to tour as much as we can. It will certainly be a juggling or balancing act between the two things, but we're going to figure out how to do it, and what the smart way to do it is so we don't totally burn out. Musically, it's really important for us. I'm determined to make both bands work. We'll figure it out. It's going to be a challenge, but I'm certain that I can find a way to do it."

While Bell Orchestre played four Canadian shows earlier this month, The Arcade Fire are opening for U2 at Ottawa's Corel Centre on Friday and at Montreal's Bell Centre on Saturday and Monday.