White Hinterland - "Ring the Bell". "Ring the Bell" is the lead single from White Hinterland's forthcoming Baby. Painterly pop, dazzling as white canvas, or blue canvas or green canvas. An alpine fanfare of dancing groove, nimbler than it has any right to be, filled as it is with overlapping vocals and rampart synths, whole-cloth crests of brass. Lyrically, it is an uncomplicated (though not necessarily romantic) love song - something shout-sung in straight lines across distance. But the breathless arrangement - dashed arcs of harmony and Neal Morgan's lefthanded drum hits - they signal an overwhelming abundance, a vividness that will overtake anyone's dull afternoon. I wrote earlier of canvases: now imagine verdant hills and tall bell-towers, hopes clanging across the valleys, a briskness that's swiss as mountain air, swiss as chocolate, swiss as clocks. That's all-American and itself, prouder than peaks. [pre-order]

(photo by sophie t. lvoff)