Olga Bell’s New Album Streaming Now, Out Next Week

The stream follows the release of “Perm Krai,” which Pitchfork premiered, noting that one could listen to the track “like you would peck at a fancy tasting plate, snacking on bright blobs and crunchy bits on a backing of white space,” while Chicago Reader praised “Perm Krai,” noting “the music alternates between dense and frenetic, airy and meditative, but the arrangements are never less than rigorous.” Bell recently released ” Stavropol Krai” also, with Stereogum observing that “her intricate vocal-centered performances are as strong as ever and backed by even fuller arrangements.”

On Monday, April 28 at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge, Olga Bell will perform the NYC premiere ofKrai with full ensemble (six vocalists and six instrumentalists). Aaron Arntz and Chris Bear of Grizzly Bear and Ben Campbell of Build will open the evening with a trio set. The show is all ages and will feature video artwork by Alejandro Crawford.

About Krai:

Inspired by the lesser-known corners of Bell’s homeland and written entirely in her native Russian,

Krai is Bell’s second LP and first large-scale composition.  Krai (край) is the Russian word for edge, limit, frontier or hinterland. Present-day Russia is divided into a myriad of ‘federal subjects’, including nine krais. In this capacity the term is a political designation, like ‘territory’, but for the earliest Russians these places represented both the promise and terror of the vast unknown.

While much has been written about Russia’s major cities, Olga Bell’s Krai is concerned with the rest of the map: the wilderness, the towns, the inhabitants and their stories. From the Cossack melodies of Krasnodar Krai in the West to the Chukchi drumming of Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East, Krai is a journey across the Eurasian landmass in forty minutes.

About Olga Bell:

Born in Moscow and raised in Alaska, Olga Bell is an American composer, producer and performer based in Brooklyn. A prodigious classical pianist as a child and teenager, Bell graduated from the New England Conservatory at age 21 before moving to New York City to pursue electronic composition and songwriting. The past nine years have seen Bell’s steady rise from the city’s open mics to performances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

Bell makes original music, remixes and videos under her own name. As half of Nothankyou, Bell makes electronic music with British musician Tom Vek. In 2012 Bell joined Dirty Projectors for the band’s Swing Lo Magellan cycle and remains a keyboardist and singer with the band today.