Belladona

Just when I think I have the scene pretty well pegged something totally new and unique bubbles up and breach the surface. I thought our town left the field of electronic music untapped. Imagine my surprise when I was assigned to write about Belladona, a Chico trio that bases their music around electronically generated beats instead of live drums. Skeptical at first, I popped their CD titled Live Set 01-20-01 into my system. As the flowing beats, dreamy textures and sensual vocals came pouring out, the one thought I couldn't get out of my mind was "This can't be live." Not only was the production and music crisp and entrancing, it did not stop for more than a beat; it was all linked together as one seamless piece of techno / trance / dub / pop / hip-hop / rock.

"That's pretty much the whole premise — to just link everything really DJ style, mixing in other beats just like a DJ would in a club, but then have the live sound right on top of it," explained Jesse Park, Belladona's sample master and self-proclaimed beat thief. "We like what we're doing now; it's really open, we have a lot of leeway. There's no strict sound, we just want to make the beats really bouncy and get everybody up on the dance floor, pretty much have fun with it."

The beats are programmed to get people moving, but the songs offer much more. You can appreciate Belladona's music as your mood dictates — from the sweaty bump of the dance floor to the comfort of your living room couch. "If you just strictly listen to the beat and you're in the mood to dance, you can dance to it. If you're in the mood to kick back, you can kick back to it, too. I think that if the room is mellow, like a coffee shop vibe, we can play that and we can still have the crowd be interested but not feel the need to dance to it."

Part of this is due to the variety of their sound. JT's solid bass grooves define the edges of the songs and provide a slick bottom-end rumble. The echo emanating from Adam Farone's Vox hollow-body guitar encompasses the listener, enveloping them in a blanket of swirling notes. Adam handles most of the vocal duties as well, alternating between delicately crooned melodies and rhythmic hip-hop flow. The live instrumentation also gives their sound that organic band flavor that Chico favors, opening up their music for a wide audience.

"It kinda took that inhuman ability out of it, [not] just having a beat in your ear all night. It was like [we] were doing something up there, creating the sound. Even though the beats come from drum machines or from vinyl, there's also that human factor and it makes it so people can kind of like it more; it's available for everybody."

The human factor also gives indication as to how their songs are written.

"We do a lot of jamming. We come up with songs in all sorts of ways — John might bring in a bass line and I'll just put a beat to it and we'll work off that. Adam might come in with a complete song, and we'll just try to work it from there, or sometimes I'll just put on a beat and we'll just start jamming and I can just tape it right here and then we listen to it later."

As seamless as their songs, the band felt an immediate kinship. "Our first session, we just played for three hours and we recorded the whole thing. We probably came up with a good four or five songs from that, and that was pretty much the basis of how we started," explained Jesse as we sat in their practice studio.

"That's actually the very first time I met Adam too. It just clicked right away," elaborated JT, the mellow bass player. Belladona has a gift for fusing elements that wouldn't obviously fit together. When I think "electronic music," the word "improvisation" is the farthest thing from my mind. Adam indicated Jesse's ability to bridge the gap between jam and dance. "He improvises with the beats too — it's like we jam, even with programmed beats." The songs are created through this catalyst. "We take those jams and we program them, so they are specific. That's why it might sound like more of a live feel to it, because we've taken what we thought worked when we were jamming and programmed it in. It sounds like we might be flowing, but really, we know exactly where it's gonna change."

JT and Jesse used to play together in Flipwreck, a staple of Chico's punk / metal scene. After the band's demise, the two took a short break from music, only to find themselves jamming again, only this time developing their sound in a much different manner.

"I think it's kinda a Chico vibe. There's a lot of different scenes meshed into one here, cause the population's a little bit smaller you can't be so specific, otherwise you run out of friends. I think a lot of people can get into it."

Since Chico's music scene is prone to overlap, they find it important to offer something for everybody, regardless of their specific musical tastes.

"We have enough of a sound so that we can play with a reggae band, we could play a rave with just DJs, or we can play hip-hop. We could play with a rock band, we could play with a punk band. It just depends on the venue. I hope that we attract more than just one type of audience."

From one listen, it was clear that Belladona were all about the synthesis of beat and flow with melody and subtlety, while pushing the boundaries and maintaining a positive vibe. Their musical blend is one to be experienced in person, so do not hesitate to check these guys out and let them dissolve some stagnant notions about how music can be made.

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