From organic acoustic sounds to electro synth, Andrew Belle’s music is hard to pin down to one genre. Whatever evolution it’s undergoing, Belle’s smooth, melodic, and unique voice remains an unstoppable driving force that continues to draw people to his music.
Following the success of his sophomore album, Black Bear, Belle’s newest musical endeavor, Dive Deep, available August 25, continues the artist’s experimentation with sounds and songwriting. The tracks are more personal here, and the lyrics convey stories and ideas of a true musical expedition — one that listeners will enjoy joining.
A nice continuation of Belle’s musical voyages is the album’s wavy and introspective opener, “Horizon.” Other standout songs include “Dive Deep,” about the early stages of his relationship with his wife; the dance-inducing “Down”; and the grunge-rock-synth anthem “You.” Whatever song, Belle finds a way to grip listeners with his original talent.
C&I recently talked with Belle about the new album and experimentation in sound, his time in Music City and what he’d be doing if music never came to him.
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Cowboys & Indians: It’s been a little while since we’ve heard new music from you. Your last album, Black Bear, was a such a revelation of your talent and range in musical genres. Your upcoming album, Dive Deep, is being released August 25. What’s the journey of this album been like, and what do you hope listeners will take from it after the wait?
Andrew Belle: This album has been a long time coming — a lot like the last one really. I began writing for it in 2014 and wasn’t quite sure what sort of album it was going to be in the beginning. The first songs that I wrote were “Black Clouds” and “TRNT” — which have a lot of vibe and mood to them — and so I thought maybe that was what the rest of the record would feel like, too.
I was having trouble coming up with fresh ideas for songs this time around and so I solicited longtime collaborators Chad Copelin and James McAlister to help me work up some short musical ideas that I could write to. And that’s how songs like “Horizon,” “New York,” and “Drought” came to life — short 60-second ideas that I took home and turned into songs. “You” was a song that I had started writing seven years ago and couldn’t quite figure out how to tie it all together until I finally was able to make sense of it with Chad’s help.
After I’d written 10 songs for the record, I assumed I was done and began recording. But one day while on break from making the album I got an email from a writer-producer in Nashville looking to collaborate on a song idea. I was so busy that I almost put it off, but I ended up messing around with the track for an hour one day and came up with the hook for the “Down” chorus. I loved it so much [that] we kept chipping away at it until we had the entire thing written in a few days — all over email.
This record in many ways feels like the next step or a continuation of the Black Bear record, and so I hope that people connect with it as strongly as they did the last one and that the music can become intertwined with the various seasons of their life.
C&I: In your bio, it says that you lost your voice for a short period of time after the release of Black Bear and during the time of writing for Dive Deep. What was going on with your voice, and how did losing it affect your creative process and influence the album as a whole?
Belle: I don’t really know, to be honest. I was recording vocals for “You” and probably just got carried away trying to hit this note exactly the way I wanted to, which is pretty typical. I spent all afternoon on this one line of the song and the next day I woke up and my voice felt a little off. A few days later I attempted to sing again and was really surprised to find that I couldn’t make my throat do what I wanted it to do.
It wasn’t like a vocal strain or fatigue or anything like that — it was almost like my mind didn’t know how to make my body do what it wanted it to do. It was so bizarre.
Weeks went by and still no change. I went to specialists and no one could quite figure out what was happening. On a whim, I went to an acupuncturist, who had a suspicion that I had pulled a muscle in my neck and that it was causing the issue. I was a little skeptical, but after two sessions I began to feel slowly like myself again with regard to singing. And after two weeks of slowly easing back into it, I was able to regain the control of my voice that I’ve become accustomed to.
I was so relieved! All of this spanned more than two months, and so it forced me to consider the possibility that my voice may never return to full form. Coming to grips with that — as scary as it was — forced me to see just how much I love to make records, even if it can be stressful and exhausting. I tend to get so caught up in the details when making an album that I forget what it’s all for. This scare was able to remind me of my love for creating and show me that I truly love what I do.
C&I: Where did you get inspiration for this album? How does this record stand out from your other two?
Belle: I didn’t have a defined concept for this record before I started. I just continued to do what I always do, which is write songs about my life and everything going on, then stepping back and looking at it from a distance to figure out what the common thread appears to be.
On this one, I was thinking a lot about the choices I’ve made in my life: why I chose one path over another, and if I had gone another route what life might look like. Making choices used to be easy for me, but I find that the older I get, the more indecisive I’ve become and the harder it gets to feel confident in the unknown. Maybe because the more time goes by, the more I build and the more I have at stake if I make the wrong choice.
And so songs like “Dive Deep” and “Down” are about learning to make a decision and move forward in confidence — to not be paralyzed by indecision and to let your life unfold in front of you as if everything was part of a plan and you weren’t really in control of it anyway.
So in that way it’s pretty similar to my other two releases, but musically I would say it’s much tighter and focused. I brought back all of the same guys that made Black Bear with me, and so if last time we were exploring and searching for a sound, this time we were more confident and had more vision for what it should sound like. And I think the songs are better for that.
C&I: Since the release of your All the Pretty Lights EP and your debut album, The Ladder, your music has gone through many stages. When you first started, your songs were acoustic-piano-driven before transitioning into more electro-synth on Black Bear and Dive Deep. Was this a normal progression in your music or something you’ve always wanted to experiment with?
Belle: I don’t really remember when exactly my taste began to change, but some time ago I realized how much more inspired I was by more progressive, electronic, alternative sounds and how, if I was going to continue on in music, I needed to be creating sounds that filled me with excitement and creativity. James Blake’s first record, Thom Yorke’s Eraser, and M83’s Hurry Up We’re Dreaming were records that first opened me up to that realization. I also remember being on a plane watching the film Drive and being captivated the entire time by the juxtaposition of heavy subject matter against the lush synthetic soundscape arranged throughout.
I had a lot of success with the more organic acoustic sounds on The Ladder and I knew it would be risky to go against the grain so quickly, but I had a strong sense that my fans were too getting older and their taste was changing — so I was hopeful that they would embrace something new.
C&I: Where do you see your sonic experimentation taking you in the future?
Belle: Well, I’d like to keep things in the same alt/electro sonic world but maybe simplify and strip down a bit. I want to see how much we
Source: https://www.cowboysindians.com/2017/08/andrew-belle-dives-deep-for-his-new-album/