BELLS LARSEN’S DEBUT ALBUM, GOOD GRIEF, OUT TODAY VIA NEXT DOOR RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “TEENAGE LOVE” HERE
BUY / STREAM GOOD GRIEF HERE
BELLS LARSEN LIVE PERFORMANCES BEGIN THIS WEEK
"Bells Larsen is undeniably one of the most exciting young artists to arrive on the scene. Their previous songs, “Double Aquarius” and “People Who Mean So Much To Me”, are two of the very best tracks we’ve heard all year. The Canadian adds a third to their growing legacy with “Sweater Weather”". - The Revue
“Inspired by the tongue-in-cheek songwriting of Soccer Mommy and Courtney Barnett, "Double Aquarius" is full of memorable lines drenched in witty, self-deprecating humour about watching reruns of Glee and killing the mood at a party by playing Sufjan Stevens. But it's the kernels of truth that lie beneath that make this such a relatable listen, illuminating inner battles that we all have on a regular basis.” CBC Music on “Double Aquarius”
“the bouncy and upbeat folk-tinged anthem ponders the affinity between love and the stars.” Exclaim! On “Double Aquarius
Today, Bells Larsen (he/they, il/iel) is celebrating the release of their new album, Good Grief, with the new video for album track “Teenage Love” from director Dominique Montesano. The LP, Good Grief, was inspired by “the sudden loss of my first love, who passed away when I was nineteen,” says Larsen. “The music is steeped in queer love, young love, and lost love. I knew I wanted the aesthetic of the ‘Teenage Love’ music video to reflect all of these things. Dom, the director, and I wandered around some parks in Montreal and asked folks—both people in our lives and total strangers—to tell us what love meant to them. The dreamy super 8 mixed film mixed with the track itself makes for an intimate ‘home video’ kind of vibe, which is exactly what I want to emulate not only in the song, but in the album as a whole too. I hope that people can see their own stories reflected in mine, or in the ones shared in the video."
WATCH / SHARE “TEENAGE LOVE” HERE
MORE ABOUT GOOD GRIEF
Larsen started writing for the album at the age of nineteen, during what would prove to be the start of a hugely transitional time in their life. In the five years since the songs on Good Grief began to take shape, Larsen has moved across the country, studied philosophy at a small liberal arts college, dropped out, and then moved across the country again. Larsen’s life was also put on pause after the sudden death of their first love. Since this person’s passing, Larsen has been writing songs that attempt to express this person’s spirit and create a tangible container for their memory. “This loss left so many people with so many unanswered questions, myself included,” Larsen admits. “I haven’t always arrived at answers to these questions, but songwriting has provided me with a way to at least ask.”
While demoing this collection of songs at an artist residency in Banff, it dawned on Larsen that the experience of loss exists outside of losing someone; we mourn places and memories, too. “The definition of the word “loss” changes all the time for me,” says Larsen. “What does it mean to have truly lost someone? Something? If I lose something, how do I know for certain that I’ve lost it for good? As I reflected on the experience of losing my first love, I wrote songs that allowed me to explore these trains of thought.” The result was a record that bridges the gaps between I, you, and we to narrate an intentional mediation on what it means to experience grief as young queer person.
WATCH / SHARE “DOUBLE AQUARIUS” HERE
The first voice we hear on Larsen’s album is that of their first love; “Ready?” she asks. As if to answer her, Good Grief then begins with an audio recording from 2013 of Larsen and their high school friends singing Sufjan Stevens’ song "The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!" around a campfire. “Loss is a wasp’s sting,” says Larsen. “This Sufjan song has been dear to me for a long time, but I understood it very differently after my first love passed away.”
When Larsen was recording Good Grief, they sought out old voice memos to use as interludes in between songs. “I wanted to make the music sound more human,” Larsen admits. “Eventually, I found the campfire recording from the tenth grade, and I was immediately struck by the fact that the most prominent voice is that of my first love.” Larsen edited the clip down to about thirty seconds in order to highlight several lines in the song which are, to them, the most poignant with regards to the theme of loss. Larsen shares: “When the record starts and my ex says ‘ready?’, part of me knows that she’s asking my friends and I if we were ready to sing around that fire all those years ago, but there’s also a part of me that feels like – in some way – she’s asking grown-up-me if I’m ‘ready’ to share my songs about grief now.”
WATCH / SHARE “PEOPLE WHO MEAN SO MUCH TO ME” HERE
The album quickly unfurls like a bildungsroman, touching on love, loss, growing up, growing old, moving on, and moving forward. Songs like “Teenage Love” and “Sweater Weather'' conjure vivid landscapes of memory through Larsen’s lyricism, which is conversational and inviting, while being intimate and candid. Community and friendship are central to the song “People Who Mean So Much To Me”, which features vocals from Larsen’s close friend and fellow musician, Leith Ross. Larsen explains: “this song is composed of vignettes about three distinct relationships that I had fostered throughout the span of a single year. I wrote it during the pandemic, while I was really missing community.” To Larsen, the song is a reminder to them that, even when they’re feeling lonely and isolated, they will continue to cross paths with wonderful people and build meaningful relationships.
BUY / STREAM GOOD GRIEF HERE
Larsen co-produced the record with fellow musician Graham Ereaux. Good Grief was recorded at Ereaux’s studio in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, where Larsen and Ereaux were joined by multi-instrumentalist Evan Matthews. “There was such an advantage to bringing my songs to two people who are not intimately connected to my experiences. Neither Evan nor Graham listened to my songs as artifacts of grief, but rather, they heard them as compositional elements.” With the record in hand, Larsen enlisted Howard Bilerman to mix the record, back home in Montreal.
The five years that it took to write Good Grief encompass so many aspects of Larsen’s life, capturing a coming-of-age story and documenting an ongoing process – of an artist and of a human being – as they try to navigate the terrain of their existence and that of those around them. It’s an experience of their loss but also honours the person that was lost to them. The record closes with a reprise of the “Wasps” audio recording, marrying the past and present as the old voice memo slowly fades into a newer one. Present-day Larsen sings, “I can tell you I love her each day”: a testament to the fact that their grief is – finally – good.
WATCH / SHARE “SWEATER WEATHER” LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO HERE
BUY / STREAM “CHANDAIL CAMOUFLAGE” HERE
BELLS LARSEN TOUR DATES
September 9 - Montreal - Diving Bell Social Club
September 13 - Toronto - The Drake Underground
September 30 - Montreal | Next Door Records POP Montreal Showcase - Ursa
GOOD GRIEF TRACKLIST
01 Wasps
02 Tongue Tied
03 Double Aquarius
04 Teenage Love
05 Sweater Weather
06 Say Something
07 Atlantic Love, A Long Distant Wave (ft. Devarrow)
08 The Geography Of Leaving
09 Cara
10 Ribcage
11 People Who Mean So Much To Me
12 Wasps (Reprise)
Photo Credit : Howard Bilerman // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES