A Conversation with Bellbird on Forest Silence and New Constellation Music
Transmission 310: Interview with Bellbird
Bellbird is a Montréal-based jazz ensemble that operates with a quiet, deliberative confidence. In their music, they have addressed themes of human interaction with the natural world, the isolation of the forest, and the translation of avian linguistics into acoustic structures. Since their formation, they have moved through the city’s underground scenes, utilizing a range of approaches that illustrate music is a process of collective searching rather than a fixed destination.
Artist: Bellbird
Genres: Avant-garde, Experimental Music, Jazz
Label: Constellation Records
Description: Bellbird discuss their upcoming 2026 Constellation Records debut The Call, the Orford residency, and translating nature into experimental jazz.
The quartet, tenor saxophonist Claire Devlin, alto saxophonist and bass clarinetist Allison Burik, bassist Eli Davidovici, and drummer Mili Hong, recorded their latest material at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and during an intense residency in Orford, giving the tracks a grounded, atmospheric reality. They are the authors of the acclaimed 2023 self-released debut Root in Tandem, as well as the new full-length album The Call, arriving in early 2026 on Constellation Records.
Featured image: Marc Etienne Mongrain
How did the four musicians from three different countries find the common language in Montreal?
[Claire] We came together at various times in Montreal around 2021. We had all come out of this music scene that was formed in Montreal at Resonance Café, this great venue that unfortunately shut down in the pandemic. That’s where Eli and I and me and Mili met, and Allison came to Montreal a bit later. We found a common vision in our music in Montreal through that scene at that venue.
What was the specific moment you realized Bellbird was your primary creative project?
[Eli] We realized we were all really into it early on. We’re all involved in other projects, but during the recording of the first album, Root in Tandem, things accelerated to the point where it felt very comfortable. At first, it was just the combination of the four of us that felt really good making music in that context, but eventually, it became its own thing. On the new record, you can hear it’s become more and more of its own sound. The Bellbird aesthetic became stronger than the four of us as individuals.
The Bellbird aesthetic became stronger than the four of us as individuals.”— Eli Davidovici
How does the Montreal underground specifically influence your sound?
[Claire] In a couple of ways. Each of the individual members were involved in multiple music scenes in Montreal. Mili and I play in a couple of indie rock bands, and we’re all doing slightly different genres. That really comes into what we bring to Bellbird, like the different styles of music and the way that we improvise together. There’s another venue that also influences us, which is this weekly jazz gig at Dacha, which has a way of improvising that’s really groove-oriented. That’s a part of the Montreal underground jazz and improv scene that has bled into Bellbird‘s way of improvising. Would you agree, Eli?
[Eli] When I first moved to Montreal, what I really was attracted to was going out to venues and not knowing what genre of music I was going to. I maybe knew a couple of musicians playing, but they could be performing something jazz, something really experimental, maybe improvised, or something more rock or electronic. That felt natural in Montreal. There’s something across-genre that still has a real character and identity to it. I feel like we’re still identifying with that and inspired by that in Bellbird.
What did your individual musical training prepare you for this quartet?
[Eli] It’s different for all of us, but we all have definite training in a jazz background and performing in different jazz contexts. Something that we draw on a lot is performing a lot of improvised experimental music. For me, there is extended technique stuff on my instrument that adds different textures and sounds that we might not draw on as much if we were just a jazz quartet. That changes the band sound. Also, the way we recorded the album and working with Sylvaine Arnaud—she’s a really great engineer—captures some of the more indie rock and experimental sounds that we’ve recorded ourselves in other contexts. I don’t know if Claire, you had a different idea of your own training?
[Claire] We all have training in traditional jazz from university degrees in jazz performance, but we’ve all had other formative experiences that led us down this road. For example, I did a summer workshop at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity about nine years ago that really affected and inspired me. Artists like Okkyung Lee or Tyshawn Sorey, who are pushing the boundaries of this kind of music, inspired me to approach some of those weirder sounds and different ways of improvising. It’s a combination of those influences.
How did the isolation of the Orford Music Residency shape these eight songs?
[Claire] In the fall of 2024, we spent two weeks in Orford, Quebec, in this music residency that’s pretty isolated in the forest. A lot of the music on this new record was developed there, either written entirely there or arranged. It was an intense time. We played a lot together during those two weeks and tried a lot of different exercises for writing music together because we hadn’t done a lot of that before. It was this new step in our band of really melding our individual voices into one voice together. That isolation at Orford allowed us to reach the next step.
[Eli] Looking back, the first week was very much intense energy. Some of the songs that came out of that, like the arrangements for The Call, Firefly Pharology, and Murmuration, have a certain character that is intense in building up to something. Whereas the second week, we felt a bit drained, so we took a direction that was a lot more calm. It represents the vibe of Orford, where it is really quiet and beautiful. There’s a lot of space and different things to look for when you go outside and spend time alone. That isolation comes out of songs like Phthalo Green, Soft Animal, and a few other moments on the record. I think about those two different weeks as two different characters on the album.
The title track of the album, The Call, uses a transcription of the bird call of the white bellbird that lives in the Amazon, which is a really striking call. It’s the loudest bird call in the world, and it has a lot of different tones within it, just in the one screeching sound.”— Claire Devlin
Is there a narrative thread running through the record?
[Claire] The narrative thread that ties it together has to do with our relationship with the natural world. A lot of our pieces are inspired by different aspects of nature, animals, or especially bird calls. The title track of the album, The Call, uses a transcription of the bird call of the white bellbird that lives in the Amazon, which is a really striking call. It’s the loudest bird call in the world, and it has a lot of different tones within it, just in the one screeching sound. We derived rhythms from it and made that into this piece. It’s fitting that we were in the forest to develop these pieces because we all deeply care about our relationship with nature and how humans are affecting the natural world.
What was the most difficult track to record on the album?
[Claire] Eternity Perspective might be the one that is the most difficult. It requires real subtlety, has a lot of different sections, and challenges that make it hard to perform live.
[Eli] It’s also the longest on the record. There’s one that didn’t make it onto the record that will probably make it onto the next one. It wasn’t a hard song, but sometimes just getting the energy right in the arrangement, we had disagreements about how to make it work. We recorded more songs than made it on, so the ones that felt the best and fit together were probably the easiest ones. But we definitely made some of them a challenge for ourselves. The Call is a bit of a workout for the horns, especially. Firefly Pharology and Blowing on Embers are not easy for me and Mili, the drummer.
Are there specific visual artists who inspired the mood of the album?
[Claire] I don’t think we explored visual art very much for this album. It was a lot of poetry, music, and nature.
[Eli] Poetry was a big thing. The poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver was inspiring for the song Soft Animal. There are visual artists in Montreal we had collaborated with before; Yeşim Tosuner helped us put the artwork together for both albums. But it wasn’t something we had talked about as a band in terms of specific visual artists. It was more our experience of being at Orford, being outside, that poem, and the music we were listening to.
Are there any instruments or technologies you’re curious to explore next?
[Claire] We have talked over the years about integrating more electronics because all of us have practices that involve guitar pedals, DAWs, or different instruments like synths. We’ve chosen not to integrate those so far because it’s nice to have the challenge of this box to keep ourselves in of just the acoustic instruments.
[Eli] Working acoustically allows you to explore timbres that you might otherwise get more easily with electronic sound, like saxophone multiphonics, extended techniques with Arco on the bass, or different percussive sounds. That differentiates this album from our first where we have more of those. We want to explore it for sure, but we’ll be careful about how we do it.
How do you prepare to bring the studio textures of the album to a live stage?
[Eli] How Sylvaine recorded us already captures the energy. With Mili‘s drum set, she plays something between a rock kit and a jazz kit. It’s a bigger drum sound and a more in-your-face energy. The way that we improvise is captured well on the record, so I don’t think it’s too much of a struggle. I don’t think we have to do too much like in terms of adding effects to ourselves to achieve that energy.
[Claire] The way we recorded it was super similar to how we perform it already. It was very live off the floor, little to no overdubs. It’s kind of already ready to go as a live performance pretty much.
Photos courtesy of Bellbird
Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others
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