southern records

"If in doubt, bring on the strings," quipped on Maker wag on hearing the trio of symphonic ballads that end Suede's "Coming Up" LP, as if to suggest that orchestras were the last refuge of the imaginatively exhausted pop musician, the last resort for the cynical tactician with one finger on the button marked "emote control".

These days, everyone from the Tindersticks to Cast drench their songs in strings. "The Sea and the Bells", though, is far removed from traditional notions of the ornately embellished rock record. In fact, it's about as close to a classical recording as you're going to get from a group of twentysomethings from Louisville, one of whom, Jason Noble, used to be in Rodan (who formed out of the ashes of Slint - the latter featuring a future member of Tortoise), another of whom (engineer Bob Weston) plays bass in Steve Albini's Shellac.

Rachel's first album, "Handwriting" (1995), got called neo-classical, or pseudo-classical, or sorta-classical, in that it allied classical music instrumentation to all manner of samples, tapes, and avant garde effects. "Music For Egon Schiele", released earlier this year on Quarterstick (home of Henry Rollins), was a simpler affair, featuring just piano, cello and viola. "The Sea And The Bells" revisits the modern or experimental classical terrain of "Handwriting".

Titled after a book by Pablo Neruda - who, like Frederico Garcia Lorca, was a member of Spain's celebrated Generacion De 1927 (keep up at the back!) - this expensive-looking package comes complete with booklet, poetry and one hour's worth of music played on violins, timpani, recorders, vibes and trumpets. Some tracks - "The Voyage Of Camille", "Cypress Branches" - run the gamut of avant styles from Stockhausen to Labradford, others of which are more simply affecting. "Tea Merchants", for example, is like something out of a Merchant Ivory film.

Noble adds electric bass to "Lloyd's Register" and guitars to "Sirens", although at no point do you feel you're listening to a rock song, even in an era that has produced something as fabulously fussy as Smog's "Prince Alone In The Studio" - if anything, the screeching violas of "Sirens" recall the nightmare shower scene from Bernard Herrman's soundtrack to "Psycho".

File under: beautiful weird shit.