Philip Bell

Philip Bell is a Boston area musician residing in Cambridge MA. His debut album "Since" is a testament to three years spent recording in the studio. With only a vision in his mind's eye of what his music could be Bell enlisted the help of co-producer/engineer Brian Charles (The Shiela Divine, Bright Eyes) to help bring it to life. Their first step-- choosing a band for the record. "Since" features Duke Levine (Peter Wolf, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and Kevin Barry (Ray Lamontagne) on guitar, John Sands (Aimee Mann, Liz Phair) on drums, Jamie Edwards (Aimee Mann, Ron Sexsmith) on piano and Jim Haggerty (The Gravy, Wanda Jackson) on Bass. 

While a majority of the album was tracked at Charles' Zippah Recording in Brighton MA, it's arena like sound is also attributable to the other venues selected for their acoustics. For example, a 19th century church in Milton MA for a string octet and Rear Window Studios in Brookline for Grand Piano. One of the songs, "In The Middle," had mixing done by Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade who are best known for their work with bands such as Radiohead, the Pixies and The Lemonheads. Also, additional production by Ed Valauskas (Eli "Paperboy" Reed).

But what about the music? Though the main theme of the album revolves around the subject of love and loss, each track has an uncanny way of drawing the listener into a lush bed of strings and guitars. In the song "Forever" Bell whispers the line "With the eyes of a saint and the hands of a thief, I almost felt blessed as you stole from me" just before soaring into the song's chorus. Think of Nina Simone's "Baltimore" meets Jeff Buckley's "Grace." But all comparisons aside, Bell hopes the songs will speak for themselves, "I always wanted to create an album that would fall on someone’s ears the way I remember music first falling on mine. That would help me know all the time spent was worth it.”