"Dark and damaged --
just how I like my rock and roll."
-Jim Jarmusch
"...destructive, debauched
elegance. Addictively sinister." -Rock
Sound UK
"...The
Big Cats
Will Throw Themselves Over is spellbinding." -The Big Takeover
"The Big
Cats is an exquisite
corpse, a great
demonstration of violent decay." -emusic.com
"These Guys are
awesome..." -KFJC FM
PAPER MAGAZINE'S "MOST
BEAUTIFUL"
"Underground
goth-noise
royalty..." - Village Voice
NY PRESS

JUNKMEDIA.ORG
Bellmer Dolls
Death Becomes Them.
Outside a dive bar in Williamsburg, two towering rockers from New York
band Bellmer Dolls alternate between cell phones and cigarettes. The
first, Peter Mavrogeorgis, has the air of a Greek Adonis, built and tan
with black wavy locks swept over his forehead.
"I'm still shell-shocked" says Mavrogeorgis, the band's frontman, of
the deafening level of the jukebox, still audible from inside.
Bassist Anthony Malat, with tattooed arms and a sandy handlebar
moustache and goatee, nods. He looks like the sort of guy who might
have killed a man in Reno. They mutually conclude that a quieter
setting is in order. Malat, who turns out to be much more the lamb than
the lion, offers the studio space where he designs menswear under the
moniker Sinner/Saint. They climb into Mavrogeorgis's two-door black
car, and head out to pick up drummer Daniel Sheerin.
Onstage Sheerin tends to be the most dapper of the bunch, Beatles
haircut coupled with Malat's more posh designs, but tonight he wanders
out of his building in an oft-washed black skeleton t-shirt, tight
jeans, and beat up black boots. He crawls into the backseat as they
discuss beverage options.
After much deliberation on beer, the gang settles in at Malat's studio.
The mostly bare white room mingles grandmother's sitting room of floral
sofa and woven rug with meticulously organized tailor's shop, full of
racks of men's jackets featuring contrast stitching, decorative cuffs,
and buttons galore.
The three begin to finish each other's sentences while reminiscing on
how they began working together. Mavrogeorgis had long admired Malat
from various shared bills, Malat playing in Love Life, and Mavrogeorgis
in the Vanity Set with Bad Seeds/Grinderman member and Dolls' producer
Jim Sclavunos.
"I got to play a show at a silly party called Rubulad with the Vanity
Set, and Love Life played their last show there. They were already on
the outs, and Anthony was pretty insufferable to the audience onstage,
and I just felt love," Mavrogeorgis says. "I never saw anyone treat an
audience with that much disrespect and still pull off just a really,
really good show."
Malat and Mavrogeorgis joined forces in 2003 and began searching for
the right drummer, but were disappointed to find no suitable candidates
through word of mouth. After battling writer's block and creating one
nonsensical Craigslist ad, the pair posted a classified that simply
listed their body of work.
"Ironically, the one that I responded to was actually not in the
musicians one but in the Casual Encounters," Sheerin says.
"Oh shut up," Mavrogeorgis laughs.
"That was because we got really desperate," Malat says.
"It was like, 'Two bottom twinks looking for man to take charge.' And I
was like - alright, it's Saturday night. I'm lonely. What the hell?"
Sheerin smirks.
"Well, no music got played the first time we got together anyway,"
Mavrogeorgis admits. The two had reached an epiphany while pouring
money into testing drummers in their rehearsal space: they decided that
they wanted more than just a band. The Dolls have, in fact, recently
promoted their van driver up to stage presence due to his chemistry
with the already established threesome. Gabriel Guerena now plays
anything from the keyboards to the maracas with the band live.
"Because you have to be so in tune with that person that even if that
person played their instrument better than anyone, ever... If you can't
deal with them, you can't deal with them, and you're going to get out
of the band sooner or later," Malat says. "And I feel at this point
that I don't want to have a first gig. I don't want to have a first
recording session."
Mavrogeorgis nods. "We decided, Anthony and I, that we really weren't
going to bring people to the rehearsal studio anymore. I mean, first of
all, we didn't have the money," he says. "So what we did was we'd have
people to my apartment at the time, and we'd just hang out with them.
Dan was the only one that we liked, who made it to actually coming to
rehearsal space with us. And he wasn't the best and he wasn't the
worst. But he was just the one."
The band were also fortunate in recruiting producer Sclavunos, who they
credit with salvaging a lot of the unfinished writing for their
upcoming LP Galatea. He fits in seamlessly, but also coaxes out some
dysfunction in this tight musical family.
"I think he sees in Dan the son that he probably will never have,"
Mavrogeorgis says. "I watch him torture Dan."
They all laugh. "There was this one time that I was trying to overdub
this strange snare roll and he wasn't pressing record. He kept pressing
play on it, and he was like, 'You're fucking up in the same way you
fucked up last time.'" Sheerin says. "It happened, like, five times and
by the fifth one, I was like - this is insane. Something is wrong!"
Mavrogeorgis howls with laughter.
A week before the intimate gathering at Malat's workspace, the Bellmer
Dolls packed a set in the cavernous downstairs dungeon of Lit Lounge.
Clad head to toe in black, the three blazed through several new tracks
and a couple of holdovers from their The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves
Over EP.
Mavrogeorgis, perched upon an amplifier and hanging off of the bar's
dingy overhead pipes, purred and pounced his way through the songs,
swapping between guitar and a small synthesizer set. His performance
hinted at Peter Murphy in the opening of midnight vampire classic The
Hunger. Sheerin pounded and punched his drum kit with a quiet fury.
Malat spent most of the show with his lanky frame doubled backwards,
laying down the basslines that anchor the band, and keeping them from
drifting into an all-night orgy of complete musical debauchery.
The Dolls are so dubbed in homage to Hans Bellmer, a German artist who
created life-size nude girl dolls as a protest against the Third Reich
in the 1930s. The dolls would be in some sense deformed, sometimes
headless or their arms would be placed where legs should be, presenting
a perfect antithesis to the Aryan ideal.
Bellmer's new namesakes insist that they aren't making a political
statement with their title, simply paying tribute to a brilliant
artist. "More than it being protest for me was that the nature of his
protest was to take something that is grotesque and show it in a new
light, which was really more beautiful than anything terrestrial that
we might consider beauty to be," Mavrogerogis says. "I guess what we
don't like is complacency. We're not complacent. Ever."
There's a definite resistance to pandering among this group, but a
grounded acknowledgement of realities. "Protest against the banal.
Fine," Mavrogeorgis says. "At the same time, when Jim said, 'Do you
mind singing that twice?' We were like, 'Uh, we already sang that
part...' Well, can you do it again? It becomes a chorus!"
"Yeah, we're like, chorus?" says Malat. Despite their insistence in
avoiding many artistic norms and clichés, the group realizes
some concessions must be made.
"You have to gain the audience in order to fuck up the audience,"
Sheerin says.
With fewer than six degrees of separation between the Dolls and Nick
Cave, certain comparisons seem inescapable. "I have been plagued by
Birthday Party references since I was 20 or 19. I personally don't see
that, but I stopped listening to that band when I was 17," Malat says.
"As far as what our influences are, we all come from such a totally
different place. Generally, we kind of hate the music that each other
like."
The three agree on a Glen Campbell track called "If This Is Love," one
mix tape that was stolen along with their van and all of their
equipment about five years ago, and almost nothing else. The sound that
emerges is a dark and grimy blues-rock that manages to be sonically
original while bearing echoes of many predecessors. These ghosts of
music past range from 80s Australian post-punkers the Moodists to
Robert Johnson to, indeed, the Birthday Party.
Admittedly, the lads do have some quirks that place them in the
somewhat eccentric tradition of their influences and peers. Malat, who
was ordained as a minister in the Universal Life Church in order to wed
some of his former bandmates, for a time owned a skeleton named
Cornelius in preparation for his own afterlife.
"He was a really quiet roommate for a good three years," Malat says.
"He even lived at my parents for a while," Mavrogeorgis says of
Cornelius's sojourn on Long Island during the construction of their
recording studio in his parents' house.
"I guess you would say he was a consultant on the actual layout of the
studio."
"I swear he was making noises once when I was upstairs sleeping."
Malat says, without the slightest bit of shock, "That has been told to
me."
Mavrogeorgis laughs, "I lost it. I actually drove all the way back to
the fucking city."
"You could reach," Sheerin faux yawns, "over and be like, 'Oh, you feel
skinny tonight.'"
"Yeah totally. You're a little cold, honey," Mavrogeorgis says. "Talk
about the afterlife, you know, Jim was trying to find a website once.
He was convinced that there was this website where you could sell your
body to necrophilia."
"There isn't? There's gotta be! There is," Sheerin insists.
"Yeah, Jim and I were going to do it and then we just couldn't figure
it out," Mavrogeorgis says. "I guess I'm not getting any after I die."
Perhaps necrophilia is not in the cards, but the Bellmer Dolls are
satisfied with the lifetimes that they have ahead of them. These three
lads have been through a lot together, from psychotic girlfriends to
family illnesses to physical altercations in foreign countries. "The
music that we come up with and the arguments that we have are amazing,"
says Malat. "They're very, very colorful and everything, but at the end
of the day, we all bail each other out of a whole lot of shit, and
we're willing to do that until we all die off."
Peter laughs. "We get to do this forever."
Jenna Payne
THE RICH GIRLS
ARE WEEPING
OK, readers. All of you out there in Kraftwerk's
Computer World know that Cindy and I are totally (and regularly) guilty
of waxing rhapsodic about our friends in bands. And you know just as
well, however, that even though we're both lovely in pink, neither of
us are particularly guilty of sporting rose-colored glasses. If
anything, we're brutally honest ... even where the Bellmer Dolls are
concerned.
It's always a little weird when you see guys who you know as slightly
unhinged, loveable doodz morph into a three-headed masculine animal
machine that delivers sex, death, aggression, and raw emotion without a
hint of irony. We ask now, "Was this what was like to see the Birthday
Party?" Oh wait...A. that analogy is as tired as comparing Interpol to
Joy Division, and B. the Birthday Party were a four-piece. That being
said, Los Bellmers make enough racket for six or eight, hauling an
audience further along through Hell's proverbial wringer or
meat-grinder in a short set than most bands manage to do in twice as
many songs.
In the 11 months since we last saw them (not counting the Fashion Week
appearance at Ecko that Cindy was privy to in September) the Bellmers
have matured. They have three more weeks to prove us right. We've heard
grumblings about complicated set-ups, saxophones bought and sold, extra
vocals on live tracks, and some weird, primitive piece of electronic
ephemera that comes from India. Blame it on last summer's time on the
road with Grinderman, or on time spent working on other projects, or
extended studio sessions. At any rate, wherever the fault lies seems to
suit them, and every second of the long wait since last spring's final
NYC show at the Highline was worth it. Daniel is still driving, with
Anthony providing the muscle and funk, but Peter has muzzled the dirty
hot preacher man, and the three of them are present together for the
otherwordly, not-of-this-plane horror show of ecstasy. Here's hoping
they hold it together next week.
It's difficult to talk about the Bellmers without mentioning how
fragile the experience is, that -- much like a Trail of Dead set --
they're at their best when they're just far enough from falling apart
that they can sneer at the idea with hips-first bravado. It's
immediate, devastatingly sexy, and (forgive me for being vivid) leaves
me feeling simultaneously turned on and a little violated. A few weeks
ago, the Fourelles made an overly precious joke about a "rock'n'roll
facial," but I'm sure those nice lawyer ladies were not talking about
the kind I'm thinking of after Saturday night at the Charleston.
THE RICH GIRLS
ARE WEEPING (con't.)
A few picturesque details about the Bellmer Dolls this week: Peter's
shirt was hideous, but at least he didn't split his pants. At several
points in the set, a staple gun and drumsticks were used as weapons.
With love, of course. And, one of the things I love about being crammed
into a space that tiny is that you can hear the jangle of Anthony's
tiny prayer bell tied to the headstock of his bass, ringing out a
demented call to prayer as he bends his instrument into some kind of
submission.
A demented call to prayer indeed -- Peter brought the dirty preacher
act back. Unlike the nearly rareified comfort of last week's
performance, the air was brittle with the itchy, creaky tension of boys
who'd been locked in a practice room all day. We knew we were in for
something quite different. And from first tight rhythm lines to the
last broken holler and squall of feedback in the dark, I was, as ever,
transfixed.
It's all at once too much and sometimes not enough ... but as the set
progressed, blazing through 2.5 minute messy garage raveups (including
"Automation," one of the band's very first songs) to the more eloquent
filth of old faves "The Diva" and "Push! Push!" it became clear to me
that we were all going down together. Or maybe it was just me; I barely
registered the people around me, at one point it felt I was in some
sort of Lynchian nightmare: words of fire hung in the air; the band
became smudgy shadows behind a wall of distorted sound.
Wait -- not really, but it sounds cool, huh? I mean, it felt like that
at least. It did.
The perverse finale of "Push! Push!" really can't be put into words
without edging towards ridiculous hyperbole. I always look forward to
this moment of performance with sick glee; we all know Peter's going to
molest Anthony in some way or another whilst Daniel steers the ship
straight into a maelstrom of noisy, feedback-drenched petits-morts.
There was a great amount of shoving and hollering and near-destruction
of various instruments (keyboards, kick drums, etc.) until the lone,
hot light bulb shining on stage was unscrewed and the rest of the
lights came down, leaving us in the dark, the air so thick with sinewy,
booming feedback that you could nearly taste the sound waves bouncing
by. (See, I told you ... ridiculous hyperbole!!)
And when it was all over, I found I couldn't speak. Didn't want to
speak. I couldn't even tell anyone good night and loitered on a patch
of sidewalk outside the Charleston, watching everything through the
wrong side of a spyglass; everyone around me was so very, very tiny,
and everything inside me was so very, very large. Somewhere in all that
bloodletting and hollering, something had rattled loose inside, and I
wasn't sure what drawer in my compartmentalized brain it had tumbled
out of.
You must understand, it is very unlike me to be this way.
SWAMPLAND

HENRY ROLLINS/ HARMONY IN YOUR HEAD

YOUR FLESH

PLAYLOUDER UK

ROCK SOUND UK

Named
after the
misshapen and
expicitly posed pubescent dolls of surrealist Hans Bellmer, this
Brooklyn goth-punk trio pride themselves on being of an equally
controversial persuasion. With pulsing, dirty blues-style bass
and pervasively haunting lead lines on both guitar and keys, the
overall effect is that of destructive, debauched elegance.
Addictively sinister. [RK]
PLAYLOUDER.COM(live
review)

BELLMER
DOLLS @ The Old Blue
Last,
London UK
Three
years ago I interviewed
a man
called James Sclavunos. If that
name rings a bell, it might be because Sclavunos is the Bad Seeds'
drummer, The Horrors' producer and a member of the emergent Grinderman.
The subject of our conversation, though, was Sclavunos' own band The
Vanity Set, creators of avant-garde music that's equal parts jazzy,
progressive, gothic, literary and burlesque. At one point Sclavunos
told me about his guitarist Peter Mavrogeorgis. "I quite disliked him
when I first met him," recalled the six-foot-eight-inch aristocrat of
his six-string accomplice, "but I've come to quite adore him... There's
a couple of Greeks in the band; there's some sort of weird magnetism
there."
Based in
New York City,
Bellmer
Dolls aim to infuse ugly
trash-blues with an air of Weimar decadence. Mavrogeorgis is their
singer and guitarist, so it's no surprise to see Sclavunos in the
audience. It's even less of a surprise to see Gallon Drunk singer (and
erstwhile Bad Seed) James Johnston here, for his is perhaps the band
that Bellmer Dolls most resemble.
The week
before this gig, I
saw the
Dolls play a slightly sloppy,
indulgent show at Hoxton Bar & Grill. Tonight, it's a different
story: they're fierce and focused. Driving the band forward is bassist
Anthony Malat who, rather perfectly, runs a New York menswear boutique
called Sinner/Saint. Malat looks like he should be in a cowpunk band
and, equally, like he could kill with his bare hands, and he plays his
bass like he's wrestling an enraged serpent. Yet in sonic terms he's
the band's sensible one. His pounding, hypnotic bass-lines provide a
solid structure from which Mavrogeorgis (and drummer Daniel Sheerin)
can depart on flights of fancy.
Always a
restless, twitchy
presence,
Mavrogeorgis occasionally goes
through something like an onstage exorcism. It happens tonight during
the penultimate 'Push! Push!' (the fire-and-brimstone sermon that opens
debut EP 'The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over'). As the song
slow-burningly builds toward climax, Mavrogeorgis flips out. Diving
from the stage, he starts screaming the song's titular invocation while
swinging his guitar wildly about by the strap. It whizzes within inches
of the front row's noses, but nobody moves a muscle.
We're transfixed.
Mavrogeorgis
here exhibits the
same
deranged preacher-man intensity
in which James Johnston once specialised. Also like Gallon Drunk,
Bellmer Dolls are maybe best described as blooze-hounds: their take on
old-school rhythm & blues sounds like it's full of strong liquor
and tweaked beyond reason. Behind the drumkit, Sheerin is a cyclone of
intensity. Out front, Mavrogeorgis frenziedly coaxes noise and feedback
(plus the odd shimmering melody line) from his Rickenbacker, while
delivering reference-loaded lyrics in a breathless, strangulated croon.
After
'Push! Push!' has
provided the
set's crescendo, Bellmer Dolls
find themselves in the classic Trail of Dead quandary: the stage has
pretty much been trashed, but there's still one song to play. They
persevere, though: wires are untangled, equipment plugged back in and
straps reaffixed to guitars, and during the subsequent set-closer the
impression is of a vicious storm dying down and calmness descending.
When the Dolls finally take their leave to approving roars, a passing
fan records pity for whoever has to follow them.
This,
then, is Bellmer Dolls.
I
disliked them when I first met
them, but I've come to quite adore them. There's some sort of weird
magnetism there.
Niall
O'Keeffe (playlouder.com)
DORFDISCO
DE

Zillo DE(Translation)
Art punk/ noise
goth
from NY, just how we know it and love it. The Bellmer Dolls have
already played with the likes of Jon Spencer's Blue Explosion and
Jarboe (Swans) and move in musically similar fields as Nick Cave or
Lydia Lunch circa Teenage Jesus and 8 Eyed Spy. Dark, excessive, and
damaged noise- the blues for modern times. The singer manages to pack
confusion and depression into his melodies. In addition you get raw
guitars and buzzing rhythm that burn into your entrails-- emotional
music that won't leave anyone cold. The opener "Push!Push!" sounds like
it's from a soundtrack to a Jim Jarmush film, in black and white of
course. Aside from that, a heavy Nick Cave-vibe exemplified in "the
Diva" or "L'Condition Humaine"; otherwise a dark, threatening
atmosphere like Lydia Lunch cultivated on her 13:13 album ("Every
Angel.." "There is No Oblivion"). In the Big Cats, the Bellmer Dolls
achieved an absolutely fantastic EP. On top of that, the whole thing
was produced and perfected by Jim Sclavunous who already worked with
Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, and the Cramps. This is music that's as
fascinating and disturbing as Hans Bellmer's dolls. This band will get
huge. Consider this your insider's
tip!
|

|
Dorfdisco
DE(Translation)
New
Yorkers The Bellmer
Dolls don't directly embody the influence of their namesake, but the
point of reference isn't exactly misleading either. Just as the 1930's
era artist and anarchist Hans Bellmer simultaneously revolted
against politics, the art scene, and the gaze of the voyeur with his
bizarre and swollen dolls, one could describe the Bellmer Dolls’ sound
as an obsessive investigation into the anatomy of the unconscious.
Heavy, gothic-punk styled bass and anarchic drumming develop the
foundation for the suggestive guitars and soulful, uncannily spat
vocals; something that Jim Jarmusch called "dark and damaged - just
like I like it". Produced by New York's milestone Jim Sclavunos
(Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Sonic Youth, Cramps, and the drummer of
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and released on the stylish maverick label
Hungry Eye out of New York(Phantom Limbs, Weegs, Sixteens, etc),
Bellmer Dolls are a melancholic inside edition of carnal lust. They
were recently voted into Paper Magazine's top Beautiful people; now
they just need commence a German tour for the first time.
Die New Yorker
Bellmer Dolls verkörpern nicht direkt ihren namensgebenden
Einfluss des deutschen Surrealisten Hans Bellmer, doch führt
dieser Fixpunkt auch nicht gerade von ihnen weg. So wie der deutsche
Künstler und 30ger Jahre Anarchist Hans Bellmer mit Skulpturen
verdrehter, aufgequollenen Puppen gegen die Politik wie Kunstszene und
Schaulust des Voyeurs gleichsam revoltierte, könnte man den Sound
der Bellmer Dolls gleichsam als obsessive Erkundung der Anatomie des
Unbekannten bezeichnen. Schwerer, gothic-punk artiger Bass und
archaisches Schlagzeug bilden die Grundlage für suggestiv
hypnotischer Gitarre und seelenvoll unheimlich spukendem Gesang, etwas
das Jim Jarmusch "dunkel und kaputt - so wie ich es mag" nannte.
Produziert von New Yorks Meilenstein Jim Sclavunos (Teenage Jesus and
the Jerks, Sonic Youth, Cramps, Schlagzeuger bei Nick Cave & The
Bad Seeds) und auf dem stilistischen Aussenseiter Label Hungry Eye
(Phantom Libs, Weegs, Sixteens etc.) sind sie sowas wie die
melancholische Insider Ausgabe adretter Fleicheslust. Dafür wurden
sie unlängst ins Paper Magazine's Top Beautiful People
gewählt und sollen demnächst auch zum ersten Mal in
Deutschland touren.
Orkus DE(Translation)
Harter
Tobak(?) sure, but what
a
grandiose debut EP. The Bellmer Dolls
out of the Big Apple on the east coast of the United States combine all
that that you just have to love the arty post-punk scene for: forceful
compositions, manic vocals, heavy guitars, dense percussion, and a song
writing that just makes its way under your skin and makes you wonder if
the Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over really is the NY trio's first
work. The Bellmer Dolls were given a little production assistance by
Jim Sclavunos, who already worked with such illustrious musicians as
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Cramps, Lydia Lunch, and Sonic
Youth. Sonic Youth is a good point of reference as well, since
[Bellmer Dolls’] wall-of-sound guitars might remind you of some of the
compositions by these fellow East Coast Art Punks. And if you listen
carefully, you might also draw parallels to Bauhaus's early material,
who just as freely and totally eluded any sort of compartmentalized
comparisons with their music. No wonder, then, that the Bellmer Dolls
already shared the stage with the Bravery, Pretty Girls Make Graves,
and Jarboe. With a little bit of luck we might see the Bellmer Dolls'
full length some time this year. And with a little more luck we'll also
see them soon on these shores. Extraordinary!
Harter
Tobak, okay, aber was für eine grandiose Debüt-EP. The
Bellmer Dolls aus dem Big Apple an der Ostküste der Vereinigten
Staaten bündeln all das, wofür man die arty-farty Post
Punk-Szene einfach lieben muss: Durchdringende Kompositionen, manischer
Gesang, schwere Gitarren, dichte Percussions und ein Songwriting, das
dermaßen unter die Haut geht, dass man zurecht anzweifeln
könnte, ob es The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over
tatsächlich das Erstlingswerk des Trio aus New York City ist.
Produktionstechnisch wurde den Bellmer Dolls von Jim Sclavunos unter
die Arme gegriffen, der immerhin schon mit illustren Musikern, wie z.B.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Cramps, Lydia Lunch und Sonic Youth
zusammengearbeitet hat. Sonic Youth sind eh ein gutes Stichwort, denn
an deren Wall Of Sound-Gitarren erinnern manche Kompositionen der East
Coast-Art-Punks durchaus, wohingegen man, wenn man genau hinhört,
hier und da auch Parallelen zu den Frühwerken von Bauhaus ziehen
könnte, die ebenso frei und fernab jegliches Schubladendenkens an
ihre Musik herangegangen sind. Kein Wunder daher auch, dass The Bellmer
Dolls bereits mit The Bravery, Pretty Girls Make Graves oder Jarboe auf
der Bühne standen. Mit ein bisschen Glück erscheint noch in
diesem Jahr die Full-Length-CD. Und mit noch mehr Glück sind The
Bellmer Dolls dann auch hoffentlich bald hierzulande zu sehen.
Großartig! (9) Thomas Thyssen
The Big Takeover
The spare
growling groove of
"Push!
Push!" kicks off the gritty,
slithering art-punk on the Bellmer Dolls' debut EP splendidly. What
follows is a Birthday Party-influenced set of songs that happen to be
produced by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Sonic Youth alum Jim
Sclavunos. A healthy sense of drama is ever present, and the band knows
when to exercise restraint, when to launch into a crescendo of
dissonance, and when to simply rock out. "There Is No Oblivion" hints
at Fugazi and "Pictures" brings Jon Spencer's damaged rockabilly to
mind (the band was actually hand-picked by Spencer to tour with the
Blues Explosion a while back), but the Bellmer Dolls nevertheless
retain a unique flair. Peter Mavrogeorgis pulls off the whispering,
shouting, creaking and crooning quite well - the prickly gothic doom
that he gives voice to on The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over is
spellbinding. (www.hungryeyerecords.com).
by
Kristen Sollee
XLR8R
You can
affix the label
post-punk,
goth, or noise to this trio, but the
fact is that these passionate mystics make artful jams with more soul
than your average gloomy outfit. Featuring members of Love Life,
Universal Order of Armageddon, et al., The Big Cats Will
Throw
Themselves Over is the aural
equivalent of a weeklong bender in the
most seedy, sensual nightclub this side of Babylon.
emusic.com
Evoking
equally the manic
insanity
of the Birthday Party and the grim
insistence of Swans,
New York City's Bellmer Dolls make vicious Weimar rock & roll
that's steeped in shadow and stinks of blood. It's no surprise that
bassist Anthony Malat used to be in LoveLife (the goth/horror band that
also spun-off Celebration) or that singer Peter Mavrogeorgis played
guitar for Angels of Light;
like those bands, the Bellmer Dolls push terror to its extreme,
creating songs that shriek and twitch and howl. The tension comes from
the balancing of contrasts: the bass is low and creeps like a fever
while the guitar lines are spastic and spiky. But it's never just
throttle-and-screech: there's a passage at the center of the
preciously-titled "L'Condition Humaine" where the guitars indulge in a
harrowing highwire act, twitching and wobbling anxiously. There's a
cold horror at the core of these songs that nags and unsettles. The
Big Cats is
an exquisite corpse,
a great demonstration of violent
decay.
-J.
Edward Keyes
Indie Workshop
Outside
of New York City there are not too many people fawning over the dark
sounds of the Bellmer Dolls,
but i'm pretty confident all that will change. About a year ago we
picked up this band's last 7" (The Diva) for the distro. Well now with
the release of The Big Cats Will Throw Themselves Over we get to see
(or rather hear) a full EP's worth of material from the group the
Village Voice called "Brooklyn noise-goth royalty".
Six
songs, two of them being
from
that 7", bleed out of your stereo
like some ritualistic bloodletting. Dark songs that lurch back and
forth with a fixed and malicious stare. Basically, it's creepy. But the
songs are also solid works of bleak pop. It's not just creepy to be
creepy, it's just the vibe that the Bellmer
Dolls
give of. And with a full-length in the works, I'll be sitting here,
somewhat scared, waiting for the next batch of songs they have to
offer.
Bellmer
Dolls' music is like
dark pulsating dance beats that simmer over howling
vocals. Their music is so intense and emotional that you easily find
yourself engulfed instantly. Fans of Nick Cave, Bauhaus, and 80s B-Line
Matchbox Disaster will instantly love what they are doing. They have
also in with the acclaimed bands Vanity Set and Love Life.
KFJC FM Radio
These New
York “Dolls” aren’t
fronted by David Johansen. Nope, the
Bellmer Dolls are from Brooklyn, emerging 35 years after the early
proto-punk glam era and featuring ex-members of Angels of Light, Love
Life, and U.O.A. They certainly aren’t the first band to adopt “Dolls”
as part of their namesake, but the New York punk scenes’ lingering
ethic, essence & vitality still courses through their veins.
Admittedly, their dramatically theatric vibe resonates more raucous art
& post-punk subgenre traits with a predisposition towards the
macabre & dark hued goth aesthetic. Sometimes I swear I almost hear
Lux Interior, with a touch of Glenn Danzig or Ian Astbury coming
through Peter Mavrogerorgis’ semi-distorted vocals but it’s certainly
no imitation. Phat punchy bass lines and attack fractured guitar lines
decay & sustain beautifully melancholic modulations. Heavy
syncopated rhythms & gloomy lyrics provide perfect cathartic
bleakness. These guys are awesome, exerting enough mysterious explosive
energy to attract the attention of Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion) on
stage and Jim Sclavunos’ (ex-Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, The Cramps,
Sonic Youth, and currently Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) production
savvy on their Hungry Eye debut! Badabing!
— Guy
Montag
L.A.
Alternative
During
the Nazi Party's rise
to
power in Germany in the 1930s, a
sculptor named Hans Bellmer began to create pubescent, life-sized,
explicitly sexual dolls; their surreal, awkward forms presented as a
kind of protest against the Nazi cult of the perfect body. The Bellmer
Dolls, a New York goth-punk trio, translate their namesake's mutant
sculptures into music, crafting malformed songs around harsh guitar
chords and punchy basslines.
Portland Mercury
Who made the rule
that sex
cheapens
one's music? (If the Bellmer Dolls were selling actual sex, it would
not be cheap—they were recently picked for Paper Magazine's Top
Beautiful People list and featured on the cover page of the New York
Times' fashion section.) Their recent EP, The Big Cats Will Throw
Themselves Over, is the first clearly recorded material that flaunts
Peter Mavrogeorgis' seductively heart-squeezing and irascible vocals,
conjoined with moan-y guitars that end up sounding like Interpol (minus
the asinine lyrics) meets Pulp Fiction meets Celebration meets a cheap
cigarette dangling off pouty lips. The year spent on this EP and the
pristine production by Jim Sclavunos (Sonic Youth, Nick Cave) is a
sweet, dark, glam rock laurel for the Brooklyn goth assemblage to rest
upon for some time to come. JENNA ROADMAN
S.F. Chronicle
Come hear them play, but
don't expect a soothing set that will take your cares away.
In fact,
you'll
probably be
exhausted afterward. Like Hans Bellmer the artist, Bellmer Dolls
will infect you with the intense emotion they dedicate to their
art.
PAPER MAGAZINE (http://www.papermag.com/?section=article&parid=1243)

Photograph
by
Cass Bird
The
Bellmer Dolls' compulsion to create music knows no bounds. "I should
have
quit music at least a hundred times," says bassist Anthony S. Malat
(center).
"If you knock me down I'll get back up. Unfortunately, that's the way
we all
are." Malat, who also provides the band's sharp look with his
successful
menswear line Sinner/Saint, and Peter Mavrogeorgis (vocals, guitar) met
five
years ago when they were playing in the bands Love Life and Vanity Set,
respectively, finding drummer Daniel Sheerin through a Craigslist
posting.
Sheerin (right) was surprised by but ultimately down with the approach
the other
two took to his "audition," which didn't involve music but was instead
a
drinking session -- an endurance test of sorts. After a year of writing
and
fine-tuning, the New York�based band self-released their debut in 2005,
Never
Sates Nor Palls, after which they began recording anew with old pal
Jim
Sclavunos as producer. Meanwhile, they toured, supporting bands such as
the Jon
Spencer Blues Explosion, Pretty Girls Make Graves and the Bravery.
Together
they
produce a sound that is pulled taut from long nights of rehearsal and a
die- hard
self-sufficiency that comes from many years on the road. Onstage, their
dark,
bass-driven, depths-of-hell music emerges with an intense physical
energy. "We're very disciplined," explains Mavrogeorgis (left). "When
we're onstage, it
doesn't matter what happened to us the day before, we're there in the
moment
performing our role." Hear their music at www.bellmerdolls.com.
Alex Zafiris
NYC.com

A trip to the
land
of Trash was in order last night. I went out to Williamsburg to listen
to the angst that is dubbed the Bellmer Dolls. A trio, guitar, bass and
drums, the lead singer Peter apologized for the delay as they set up
stating, “We don’t sound check anymore. No one offers us it.” The
bassist, his back heel stomping on a kick tambourine stand, kept a
steady beat with the drummer throughout the energetic performance.
Playing with a borrowed guitar, he broke his own in the days before,
the singer kept the self-deprecating humor throughout. At one point he
muttered, “The sound is shit,” and someone from the crowd responded, “
It sounds great.” He answered jokingly with, “What do you know? You
should all be wearing masks. No one should know you’re here.” With a
frenzied energy they attacked their instruments and the lead singer got
tangled all up in the guitar stands knocking them all over the place.
With friends from the crowd asking, “Can I help you?” He sarcastically
replied, “No one can help me.” A short, jarring, sweet set, the music
helped the world last night. Check them out around town.
-Grasshopper, Music Editor, nyc.com
THE
DELI MAGAZINE
We saw
this band by mistake
and
honestly they scared the shit out of
us. Sure, we though, three tall, skinny, miserable looking guys in
tight black clothes - a New York City band. Time to go smoke a
cigarette. Imagine our surprise when they started playing and had such
a huge sound that it was near impossible to escape (not that we wanted
to at that point). I think they consider themselves a punk band of some
sort, but they're most accurately described on their web site, as "the
despairing wail of an exposed nerve." That pretty much sums it up. Only
three songs are available (on this EP, and on their site), but they
show their range (which is just about as much range as a band with such
a defined aesthetic could possibly hope to muster), from the first
track's pulsating industrial clamor - the syncopation of which would
provide the perfect soundtrack for a massive goth orgy if you ask us,
to the second track which threatens to burst into a straight surf
groove (of course you'd have to dye the water red to really get the
right effect) until you realize that that would just be way too cheery
for these guys, to the final brooding "Every Angel is a Terror," the
best macabre high school prom song ever.
NYLON
In
the 30's, German Surrealist Hans Bellmer began dismembering doll parts,
only to reassemble the lose appendages into seductively Surrealist
sculptures. He was surely on the track to something good, but little
did he know he would, years later, bring influence to NYC's rebellious,
obscure, underground music scene. Fast forward and meet THE BELLMER
DOLLS, whose name was not only inspired by Bellmer's twisted works, but
who translate Bellmer's similar ability to reinvent the past. Their
"sold out" North Six gig is breathing new life into an audience
desperately in need of resuscitation. The Brooklyn based trio of
misfits: Peter Mavrogeorgis, Anthony Malat and Daniel Sheerin have been
creating a barrage of tormented sounds filled with poetic longing and
leaving it's remains along both coasts. Bellmer Dolls spew out a
sight-n-sound treat as delicious as the ones you find in your goody bag
on Hallow's Night. The band is busy assembling their own pile of
discombobulated parts and making it their musical whole. In the studio
as we speak working on their sophomore effort with Jim Sclavunos (Nick
Cave and The Bad Seeds, Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth) set to produce. These
Lost Boys will merge again with musical comrades, Lion Fever (Dim Mak)
for their second tour together starting July 2005. Papa Hans would be
so proud.
OH
MY ROCKNESS
|
| The
brutal Brooklyn band Bellmer Dolls (named for the disturbing
anti-fascist sculptures of Hans Bellmer... a hint that this isn't slow,
pretty stuff) features Anthony S. Malat, formerly of the underrated
band Love Life. Those brave enough to witness Bellmer Dolls' intense
live performance (envision a trio of Ichabod Cranes rocking out) may be
riddled with dark visions for days to come. They have taken their
twisted goth-punk-noise debauchery on the road supporting bands like Prosaics,
Pretty
Girls Make Graves and Enon.
These guys are so spooky that their new 7"
was limited to 666 copies. Yikes! Go to a Bellmer Dolls show, but if
you see these guys at the bar... slowly back the fuck away. |
 |
 |
BLACKBOOK MAGAZINE
NY TIMES

Indie
Designers Pin Hopes (And Clothes) on Indie Singers
By JULIA CHAPLIN (NYT)
words
Late Edition - Final
, Section 9
, Page 1
, Column 3
COVERED with sticky beer spills, the
floor at the Orchard Bar on the
Lower East Side bears no resemblance to the pristine
red carpet at the
Academy Awards. But that was not how the Bellmer Dolls, an
all-male
punk band from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, saw it on a recent Thursday
......(first 50 words posted)
<>