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Artist News Digital
Belle & Sebastian launch quarantine creative collaboration with fans
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 22 April 2020
Belle & Sebastian have released the first part of a new audio-visual project, ‘Protecting The Hive’, which explores thoughts on self-isolation and the experience of living in lockdown.
The piece sees frontman Stuart Murdoch and friend of the band Alessandra Lupo read submissions from fans, over a musical backing composed by the band’s Chris Geddes, with visuals of a deserted Glasgow filmed by Kenny MacLeod.
Following this first instalment, a second is set to join it this Friday, featuring an initial demo of a new song featuring the same fan contributions as lyrics. After that, Murdoch is asking fans to adapt this version themselves, using downloadable stems which will be made available for free.
Explaining the project recently, Murdoch told fans: “I come up with lots of tunes but the band aren’t around just now, and I rely on them to turn them into pop. How about we make a tune together using remote technology? Send me a few sentences or a paragraph, I’ll try to funnel those words into a song, then I’ll record an acoustic version of it and bounce it back to you”.
“Then it’s up to you to do what you want to do with it!”, he added. “You have GarageBand, Zoom, whatever. A collaboration. Someone might be good with tech. Someone might want to sing it. Can you put a rhythm to it? Someone add some organ, some flute! At this point it’s out of my hands”.
Watch the first ‘Protecting The Hive’ video here:
