3 out of 5

Label: Rephlex

Produced by: Chris Jeffs

As pretty much every review has remarked: Mood Bells is true to its title.  Composed nearly exclusively with various instruments suggested by the name – bells, gongs, tamtams – the ‘album’ can be a difficult listen mainly because of what I’m suggesting by those quotes: it works a song at a time, despite them all being sonically linked.  There are absolutely resonant pieces here, and many of them, actually, but as soon as you’re tuned in to the wavelength of any particular meditative offering, the process starts over again on the next track.  Whether that’s due to a complete mood change (occasionally there do appear to be electronic tweaks here, such as on the relatively peppy ‘Snowing’), or just because of the trance-like effect of the instrumentation: when it fades out and another bell or tone takes its place, it shakes you out of that state.

Yes, you will absolutely hate this if you go in expecting, y’know, Rephlex, or Cylob.  But taken as another example of the label’s willingness to shake up the form – or, heck, let’s set that argument aside; taken on with the understanding that it’s exactly what it says – mood bells – there’s definite value to giving it a spin during those times you’re in need of quiet, beatless contemplations.