Belle Adair
Muscle Shoals, Alabama, United States | INDIE
Music
Press
Hailing from famed Muscle Shoals, five-man band Belle Adair follows their self-titled 2011 EP with inaugural LP The Brave and the Blue (to be released August 27th from Single Lock Records). While their provenance will invite comparisons to the sound and spirit of the greats who have recorded in that hallowed northwest corner of Alabama, Belle Adair and their bare, jangling tunes are more reminiscent of Wilco circa Sky Blue Sky (most notably on the tempered “Unwelcome Guest”), or a mellower Dr. Dog (“Clouds Never Break”).
The album sways into being, a languid acoustic symphony enlivened by electric guitar riffs, steady drumming, and stark lyrics. The songs are gentle and breezy, though the occasional lingering harmony and well-timed whine of a steel guitar tinge them with a world-weary sadness, a kind of worn nostalgia that feels appropriate for the end of summer. And Belle Adair seems most comfortable in a state of wistful reflection, with tracks like “Sister,” “Golden Days,” and “Slowest Routine” sung as testaments to youth’s transience. Yet the band refrains from sinking into a too-heavy despair, employing punchy drumbeats, tambourine reverberations, and occasionally distorted vocals that meld to create dreamy folk-pop. This deft navigation between existential grappling and lulling instrumentals is a trademark of the group's ambition: sophistication without pretension, best exemplified by the closing track, “The Search.” The song, one of the album’s strongest, defies the tidy and careful; a simple acoustic guitar melody belies the lyrics’ forceful, raw descriptions and images rife with accusation: “You whisper that your life’s the chorus/To a tune that’s become so obvious/And your gospel has gone without warning/While your song it plays on in the morning.”
Belle Adair’s shifting, ambient music reveals a diversity of influence and an unwillingness to be pigeonholed—to avoid being defined as a Southern bar band or inoffensively hip coffee shop background music. While Belle Adair's placid sound has yet to catch up with their emotional, evocative lyrics, the perceptions on The Brave and the Blue are self-assured and the music is tight, producing a well-balanced blend of mystery and soul bearing. It’s a promising if unshowy debut that—at ten songs and just under thirty-two minutes—leaves us looking forward to more.
- Oxford American
Hailing from famed Muscle Shoals, five-man band Belle Adair follows their self-titled 2011 EP with inaugural LP The Brave and the Blue (to be released August 27th from Single Lock Records). While their provenance will invite comparisons to the sound and spirit of the greats who have recorded in that hallowed northwest corner of Alabama, Belle Adair and their bare, jangling tunes are more reminiscent of Wilco circa Sky Blue Sky (most notably on the tempered “Unwelcome Guest”), or a mellower Dr. Dog (“Clouds Never Break”).
The album sways into being, a languid acoustic symphony enlivened by electric guitar riffs, steady drumming, and stark lyrics. The songs are gentle and breezy, though the occasional lingering harmony and well-timed whine of a steel guitar tinge them with a world-weary sadness, a kind of worn nostalgia that feels appropriate for the end of summer. And Belle Adair seems most comfortable in a state of wistful reflection, with tracks like “Sister,” “Golden Days,” and “Slowest Routine” sung as testaments to youth’s transience. Yet the band refrains from sinking into a too-heavy despair, employing punchy drumbeats, tambourine reverberations, and occasionally distorted vocals that meld to create dreamy folk-pop. This deft navigation between existential grappling and lulling instrumentals is a trademark of the group's ambition: sophistication without pretension, best exemplified by the closing track, “The Search.” The song, one of the album’s strongest, defies the tidy and careful; a simple acoustic guitar melody belies the lyrics’ forceful, raw descriptions and images rife with accusation: “You whisper that your life’s the chorus/To a tune that’s become so obvious/And your gospel has gone without warning/While your song it plays on in the morning.”
Belle Adair’s shifting, ambient music reveals a diversity of influence and an unwillingness to be pigeonholed—to avoid being defined as a Southern bar band or inoffensively hip coffee shop background music. While Belle Adair's placid sound has yet to catch up with their emotional, evocative lyrics, the perceptions on The Brave and the Blue are self-assured and the music is tight, producing a well-balanced blend of mystery and soul bearing. It’s a promising if unshowy debut that—at ten songs and just under thirty-two minutes—leaves us looking forward to more.
- Oxford American
It’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and Matt Green is a bit congested. His band, Belle Adair, spent the past few days on the road, playing a hazy blend of folk-rock and indie-pop to audiences around the group’s home state of Alabama. Now back at home in Muscle Shoals, Green is drinking hot tea and taking it easy, trying to get his body back in shape for the coming workweek.
“I try to write early in the morning,” he admits, sounding far more chipper and lucid than most traveling musicians should. “I do it before coffee. Before breakfast. It’s almost like precognition. Your mind isn’t completely ready to start the day, so you’re not over-thinking it. You just let it flow.”
Maybe that’s why Belle Adair’s debut album, The Brave And The Blue, is a pitch-perfect soundtrack for those quiet hours right before dawn, when the party-hardy barflies have finally nodded off and the early risers have just started to wake. It’s ambient Americana, shot through with swirls of pedal steel, brushed percussion, keyboard and acoustic guitar. “Golden Days” chimes and swoons like something from Roger McGuinn’s back catalog, and “Losing My Train” chugs along at a casual space, like a locomotive running on liquified Sudafed instead of coal. On the opening track, “Be Brave,” the band even brews up a fog of gorgeous, gauzy guitar noise, creating a sound that purposely falls somewhere between sleepy and stunning.
When Belle Adair began recording its earliest songs in 2009, the band was a side-project that only rehearsed on the weekends. Green lived in Birmingham at the time, and keyboardist Ben Tanner – his right-hand man and longtime friend, not to mention the touring keyboardist for another one of northern Alabama’s popular exports, the Alabama Shakes – lived in Muscle Shoals. Another bandmate lived in Tuscaloosa. The guys met up during rare breaks between their school and work schedules, eventually cobbling together a homemade EP of slow-building, free-thinking folk songs. Belle Adair didn’t do much else until years later, when Green ditched Birmingham and moved back home.
“A bunch of crazy stuff had happened to me in Birmingham,” he admits with a laugh. “It all started with me losing a job, then my girlfriend and I broke up after spending six years together. I got really sick. My apartment burned down. All these losses were compounded into a six-month time frame, and I finally said, ‘Okay, I’m done. That’s enough. I’m returning to Muscle Shoals.’” Back at home, Green found himself surrounded by working musicians who dealt with their own tragedies by setting them to music. He did the same, writing a new batch of songs and shuffling Belle Adair’s lineup into a stable five-piece. Tanner stayed put, two other members left, and a trio of newbies – pedal teel guitarist Daniel Stoddard, bassist Chris James, and drummer Reed Watson – signed up.
Armed with a cinematic sound influenced by everything from Tim Hecker’s ambient electronics to the Byrds’ blissed-out jangle, the group signed with Single Lock Records – a small label co-founded by Tanner and Civil Wars guitarist John Paul White – and began recording their debut at The NuttHouse Recording Studio.
They worked fast. With Tanner pulling triple-duty as engineer, co-producer and bandmate, the guys tracked most of the songs live, adding Tanner’s keys and other instruments during a quick series of overdubs. Some of the songs dated back to Green’s darker days in Birmingham. Others were so new, the rest of the band hadn’t even heard them until the day they were slated to be recorded. By the time everything had been recorded, The Brave And The Blue told the full story of Green’s transition from bummed-out Birmingham resident to calm, collected Belle Adair frontman. It’s the push and pull between both ends of that spectrum – the brave and the blue, the major-key melodies and minor-key melancholy – that gives the album such a strong pull.
“When I play somebody else’s record,” Green says, his tea mug almost drained, “I want to enter that band’s universe. I really like psychedelic music, and I don’t necessarily mean bands like Jefferson Airplane. I mean bands that transport you to their own little world, so you can get lost in it. It’s not about escapism. It’s about connection. It’s a way of saying, ‘Hey, come join our sound. Listen to it and live with it for awhile.’ That’s what we’ve tried to do with this album. There’s two minutes of noise at the beginning, and some people would say that’s stupid … but we just want to introduce ourselves and give people a chance to settle in.” - American Songwriter
It’s 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and Matt Green is a bit congested. His band, Belle Adair, spent the past few days on the road, playing a hazy blend of folk-rock and indie-pop to audiences around the group’s home state of Alabama. Now back at home in Muscle Shoals, Green is drinking hot tea and taking it easy, trying to get his body back in shape for the coming workweek.
“I try to write early in the morning,” he admits, sounding far more chipper and lucid than most traveling musicians should. “I do it before coffee. Before breakfast. It’s almost like precognition. Your mind isn’t completely ready to start the day, so you’re not over-thinking it. You just let it flow.”
Maybe that’s why Belle Adair’s debut album, The Brave And The Blue, is a pitch-perfect soundtrack for those quiet hours right before dawn, when the party-hardy barflies have finally nodded off and the early risers have just started to wake. It’s ambient Americana, shot through with swirls of pedal steel, brushed percussion, keyboard and acoustic guitar. “Golden Days” chimes and swoons like something from Roger McGuinn’s back catalog, and “Losing My Train” chugs along at a casual space, like a locomotive running on liquified Sudafed instead of coal. On the opening track, “Be Brave,” the band even brews up a fog of gorgeous, gauzy guitar noise, creating a sound that purposely falls somewhere between sleepy and stunning.
When Belle Adair began recording its earliest songs in 2009, the band was a side-project that only rehearsed on the weekends. Green lived in Birmingham at the time, and keyboardist Ben Tanner – his right-hand man and longtime friend, not to mention the touring keyboardist for another one of northern Alabama’s popular exports, the Alabama Shakes – lived in Muscle Shoals. Another bandmate lived in Tuscaloosa. The guys met up during rare breaks between their school and work schedules, eventually cobbling together a homemade EP of slow-building, free-thinking folk songs. Belle Adair didn’t do much else until years later, when Green ditched Birmingham and moved back home.
“A bunch of crazy stuff had happened to me in Birmingham,” he admits with a laugh. “It all started with me losing a job, then my girlfriend and I broke up after spending six years together. I got really sick. My apartment burned down. All these losses were compounded into a six-month time frame, and I finally said, ‘Okay, I’m done. That’s enough. I’m returning to Muscle Shoals.’” Back at home, Green found himself surrounded by working musicians who dealt with their own tragedies by setting them to music. He did the same, writing a new batch of songs and shuffling Belle Adair’s lineup into a stable five-piece. Tanner stayed put, two other members left, and a trio of newbies – pedal teel guitarist Daniel Stoddard, bassist Chris James, and drummer Reed Watson – signed up.
Armed with a cinematic sound influenced by everything from Tim Hecker’s ambient electronics to the Byrds’ blissed-out jangle, the group signed with Single Lock Records – a small label co-founded by Tanner and Civil Wars guitarist John Paul White – and began recording their debut at The NuttHouse Recording Studio.
They worked fast. With Tanner pulling triple-duty as engineer, co-producer and bandmate, the guys tracked most of the songs live, adding Tanner’s keys and other instruments during a quick series of overdubs. Some of the songs dated back to Green’s darker days in Birmingham. Others were so new, the rest of the band hadn’t even heard them until the day they were slated to be recorded. By the time everything had been recorded, The Brave And The Blue told the full story of Green’s transition from bummed-out Birmingham resident to calm, collected Belle Adair frontman. It’s the push and pull between both ends of that spectrum – the brave and the blue, the major-key melodies and minor-key melancholy – that gives the album such a strong pull.
“When I play somebody else’s record,” Green says, his tea mug almost drained, “I want to enter that band’s universe. I really like psychedelic music, and I don’t necessarily mean bands like Jefferson Airplane. I mean bands that transport you to their own little world, so you can get lost in it. It’s not about escapism. It’s about connection. It’s a way of saying, ‘Hey, come join our sound. Listen to it and live with it for awhile.’ That’s what we’ve tried to do with this album. There’s two minutes of noise at the beginning, and some people would say that’s stupid … but we just want to introduce ourselves and give people a chance to settle in.” - American Songwriter
Check out the new video for “Losing My Train,” a standout track from folk-rock band Belle Adair‘s debut record, The Brave And The Blue.
The Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based band recorded the album for Single Lock Records, run by Civil Wars’ guitarist John Paul White and Alabama Shakes’ keyboardist Ben Tanner. The Brave And The Blue – recorded following a fire which devastated frontman Matt Green’s apartment – is filled with pensive lyrics and atmospheric effects.
“We took the title of our record, The Brave and the Blue, from the lyrics of ‘Losing My Train,’” Green tells American Songwriter. ”It’s really a song about experience and memory and how the two interact and lead us to interpret and narrate our lives. We were going for a more non-linear and emotional feel with the video to mimic daily experience. Life’s not really a straight line. At least, it’s not for me. It’s more of a jumble of experiences and emotions that I try to make sense of and arrange later.” - American Songwriter
Check out the new video for “Losing My Train,” a standout track from folk-rock band Belle Adair‘s debut record, The Brave And The Blue.
The Muscle Shoals, Alabama-based band recorded the album for Single Lock Records, run by Civil Wars’ guitarist John Paul White and Alabama Shakes’ keyboardist Ben Tanner. The Brave And The Blue – recorded following a fire which devastated frontman Matt Green’s apartment – is filled with pensive lyrics and atmospheric effects.
“We took the title of our record, The Brave and the Blue, from the lyrics of ‘Losing My Train,’” Green tells American Songwriter. ”It’s really a song about experience and memory and how the two interact and lead us to interpret and narrate our lives. We were going for a more non-linear and emotional feel with the video to mimic daily experience. Life’s not really a straight line. At least, it’s not for me. It’s more of a jumble of experiences and emotions that I try to make sense of and arrange later.” - American Songwriter
Belle Adair are a band that’s fixated on delicate melodies and encapsulating instrumentation. Whether they’re backed by a sole acoustic or a grandiose arrangement, Belle Adair’s music invites a trip of emotional exploration with their personal lyricism and cinematic imagery. With a highly acclaimed EP under their belt, the band is prepping for the release of their debut full-length The Brave and the Blue, and they’ve got a brand new track to debut from the record.
The Brave and the Blue is a record filled with soul-searching, most of the album was written after frontman Matt Green lost his apartment to a fire, the final blow that struck after a series of emotional turmoil. Thus, The Brave and the Blue packs a hefty punch. It’s filled with songs that are brimming with sincerity and emotionality that’s embellished with rich instrumentation and atmosphere. - Paste
Belle Adair are a band that’s fixated on delicate melodies and encapsulating instrumentation. Whether they’re backed by a sole acoustic or a grandiose arrangement, Belle Adair’s music invites a trip of emotional exploration with their personal lyricism and cinematic imagery. With a highly acclaimed EP under their belt, the band is prepping for the release of their debut full-length The Brave and the Blue, and they’ve got a brand new track to debut from the record.
The Brave and the Blue is a record filled with soul-searching, most of the album was written after frontman Matt Green lost his apartment to a fire, the final blow that struck after a series of emotional turmoil. Thus, The Brave and the Blue packs a hefty punch. It’s filled with songs that are brimming with sincerity and emotionality that’s embellished with rich instrumentation and atmosphere. - Paste
Belle Adair are a folk five-piece led by principal songwriter and frontman Matt Green, who crafted much of the crew's upcoming debut album in the wake of a fire that destroyed his apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. After losing everything, Green returned to his hometown of Muscle Shoals and imagined most of the songs that would become The Brave and the Blue. Understandably, the 10-track effort is imbued with melancholy. It's not a gloomy record — on the contrary, the whole LP glows with a deep, dusky aura — but there's a somber resignation that colors the ambitious collection of genre-straddling tunes. Belle Adair harness improvised ambiance ("Be Brave"), channel the lullaby-like progression of Radiohead's "No Surprises" ("Sister"), and douse Green's voice in subaquatic effects ("Slowest Routine"). Stream those and more below. Pre-orders of The Brave and the Blue are currently available through Single Lock Records. - SPIN
Belle Adair are a folk five-piece led by principal songwriter and frontman Matt Green, who crafted much of the crew's upcoming debut album in the wake of a fire that destroyed his apartment in Birmingham, Alabama. After losing everything, Green returned to his hometown of Muscle Shoals and imagined most of the songs that would become The Brave and the Blue. Understandably, the 10-track effort is imbued with melancholy. It's not a gloomy record — on the contrary, the whole LP glows with a deep, dusky aura — but there's a somber resignation that colors the ambitious collection of genre-straddling tunes. Belle Adair harness improvised ambiance ("Be Brave"), channel the lullaby-like progression of Radiohead's "No Surprises" ("Sister"), and douse Green's voice in subaquatic effects ("Slowest Routine"). Stream those and more below. Pre-orders of The Brave and the Blue are currently available through Single Lock Records. - SPIN
Discography
The Brave and the Blue
Shakin' Dead Single
Belle Adair EP
Photos
Bio
Belle Adairs first record, The Brave and the Blue, will shipwreck your intellect. One minute the kettles ringing, or the light is changing red to green, but youre gone. Youre swept away to this heart-wandering tiny universe with pedal steel swells and trumpet gulls, love lamented and comprehended. Life, examined and exalted.
The record is the wreck. The island. The raft. You? Youre the drifter. Listen.
Be Brave opens the record with two-and-a-half minutes of improvised ethereal ambience, a balm of an introduction to the motifs and instrumentation to come. The track is a reflection of Belle Adair songwriter and front man Matt Greens admiration of ambient artists like Tim Hecker and Stars of the Lid. The instrumental elements of Be Brave undercurrent the first half of the record as the sound evolves, straddling folk and pop, Americana, indie-rock. The band draws from a wide palette of sounds: pedal steel, Rhodes, violin, brass, synthesizers, and guitar, with the acoustic often playing lead. And Greens soulful vocals, hinting at British whispers and Southern lilts, steady yet brimming with the emotion of each songs crux. Green, like you, wandersbetween The Brave and the Bluesearching for significance in what we can withstand to lose and dare to hope. Much of The Brave and the Blue was imagined in the early mornings of a time of revival for Green, who returned home to Muscle Shoals, Ala., after his Birmingham apartment was destroyed in a fire, the last loss in a series of disappearances: work, love, happiness, reason.
The synced timbres and tones, key and elements, images and ideas of one grand musical atmosphere create the world of Side A. Youll wander through the cinematic poetry of burning streets beneath a wide black sky past unwelcome guests and lost loves, but dont distress. The music will carry you through. Sister is a dream, embodying the tonal modes of Belle Adair, shifting from sweet acoustics to a crescendo of jangly keys and electric guitar, before fizzing into beautiful distortion. The Unwelcome Guest is a lonely slow dance in a Southern bar. Dawn on an autumn beach and the Clouds Never Break. Youre alone, for now, drifter.
Side B begins with the rosy pop of Golden Days, your future unfurling. The organ and horn-drenched Easy Way Out is the highway, so rich in sound and ringing with such verisimilitude, your heart will ache and sing, drifter. The candid Comes a Time brings you face to face with the possibility of new love. And finally, The Search is a grassy hilltop at the destination of one journey, the launch of another. Green sings, All we seek is what we are given. Welcome home.
Greens predilection for sundry styles of songwriting is ever present in the roaming of Side Ba nod to the recording fashions of bands like The Byrds but also a manifestation of place. Greens access to talented musicians is unlimited in the Shoals. And although the songs begin with Green, they end in the deftly handled instruments of nearly a dozen musicians who gathered at Nutthouse Recording Studio in the Shoals. Of particular note is the backing bands attention to each songs needs, always appropriate, never intrudingDaniel Stoddards pedal steel, Chris James bass, and Patrick McDonalds drums. For Green, the studio is a fortress, a sanctuary, in which his intentions become tangible; the outside world barricaded from the one hes creating. Keyboardist and Greens childhood friend Ben Tanner engineered the record, drawing on the mystical intuition and trust of friendship, completing Greens arrival home.
Belle Adair casts away the trepidation of traveling roads once rocky. How fitting for a band named after a sunken ship in Steinbecks Winter of Our Discontent. Put on The Brave and the Blue. And the kettle, too. Drift away. Forage the once-forgotten memories of your past self, no longer deserted.
By KA Webb
Band Members
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