You are probably asking me, “But Will, what is a margin bell?” And as someone who went through a phase of collecting typewriters in college, I’ll tell you. A margin bell is inside most analog typewriters, telling you – the writer – when you’re about to get too close to the right margin of a paragraph. Basically, if you ignored the bell, you would continue typing and your words would fall off the page, into oblivion, never making it to the next line.
Hence the name of the band Margin Bell! The Swiss three-piece formed within the last year, setting out to create music signaling the passage of time, hoping that it doesn’t cause us to tumble into darkness. Their debut EP is Ecoanxiety, three tracks of introspective indie rock, introducing us to their dreamy and digestible musical styles as well as their unique takes on lives moving from one era to their next.
The title track has a touch of jangle pop to it, but despite its bright nature, it touches on one generation’s fear of passing ecological doom down to the next. As Vivien (vox/guitar) and Mirielle (vox/drums) sing the chorus, the guitar’s distortion grows, symbolizing the gripping fear in their hearts as they struggle to hide their anxiety about the future of the world from their children. Despite their despair, they know they have to do something about the growing threat of destruction, for the sake of generations to come: “The path will not be the same / Or I’ll be part of the ones you’ll blame.” Boris on bass really holds up the low end of things musically: It forms a sound like a rumbling, heaving heartbeat.
“Ecoanxiety” features lyrics in English, but the next two tracks come to us in French, one of Switzerland’s four official languages. (Fun fact: The other three are German, Italian, and Romansh. Suck it, English!)
“Son choix” (or “His choice”), the first of the EP’s two French songs, details a tale of regret between two people who have spent a night together, making a decision that has affected their lives forever. The lyrics hint at an unexpected pregnancy, and they play on the matter of “choice” between the man and the woman in the song. There is great confidence in the woman, as the choice is in her immediate future, and it seems she already knows what she will do. Rather, there is disappointment in the man, as the choice was in his past, and he could have chosen differently in order to pass the responsibility on to his lover. This is why the song is called “Son choix” instead of “Ses choix”; it specifically calls out the first choice as a harbinger of every choice that must come as a result.
On that track, the band takes on a wistful tone, although there is still an intensity to the music. I imagine scenes like that of Marriage Story flashing past: Initial innocent romance, then passion, then regret, then complete collapse.
The final track, “L’eau-delà”, plays on the French phrase for “the afterlife”. We’ve had songs of children and young adults, so now, here’s our song about growing old and passing on. On an album about transitions, death is the ultimate one; therefore it makes sense to end the album on this note. And while the phrase “l’au delà” doesn’t necessarily mean dying, it does relate to boundaries of any kind. As time passes, we bump into boundaries and try to battle them, but eventually we find that they’ve already fallen far behind us. By calling their song “L’eau-delà”, Margin Bell relates time to a river, and all of us as travelers down it, whether we like it or not.
This last song is even more wistful than the rest, sounding like a ballad of acceptance. It is perfect music for sailing through the water, letting time slip past us as we navigate our way through any weather.
I found myself very impressed with this debut EP from Margin Bell, and hope for much more in the future, in either English or French. They explore some fantastic musical and philosophical ideas on this record, and I always appreciate when I can sit down with a piece of music and really chew on it for a while. It is not lost on me, by the way, that a band naming itself after a warning about boundaries has written a record about the boundaries and limits to the eras we experience in life. We should never forget to hit that carriage return.
Take a listen to Ecoanxiety below.
Written by Will Sisskind
