The other week, Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian put out a call on Twitter for a collaborative project: “OK, I’ve got an idea.… 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.”
Still in bed, I sent him a brief paragraph about how I’m handling self-isolation (the gist of which is that I’m lucky) and a photo of the sunrise my anxiety forced me to notice that morning. A few weeks later, and Belle and Sebastian are out with a two-part collaborative project called Protecting the Hive. The first part, out Tuesday, is a video featuring Murdoch and Alessandra Lupo narrating fan quotes over gentle, spacey music — the imagery a deserted, sunny Glasgow.
1. Ok, I’ve got an idea. 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? pic.twitter.com/lzbvlnTZ49
— stuart murdoch (@nee_massey) March 28, 2020
My quotes are not included in this first video, but Murdoch and Co. are promising a second edition come Friday — this time, audio-only. Belle and Sebastian encourage fans to take said audio files and make something new out of them.
“You have GarageBand, Zoom, whatever. A collaboration,” Murdoch said. “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.”
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Murdoch also started leading meditation sessions to help fans stay Zen during the COVID-19 pandemic. The band dropped its most recent album, Days of the Bagnold Summer, in 2019.
