Oliver Kalb AKA: Bellows forthcoming release The Rose Gardener, comes out on February 22, via Top Shelf Records. Ahead of the album’s release he has shared the track “The Tower.” The album was Produced, recorded & engineered by Kalb. Bellows will be taking the album on the road, starting March 1st in Albany, NY.

Bellows on “The Tower”:

“‘The Tower’ is partially based on an interpolation of the song ‘WTF’ by Gabby’s World, the other band I’m in,” says Oliver Kalb of the penultimate track from his forthcoming record The Rose Gardener. “Those first lines are about the experience of hearing ‘WTF’ and having a memory of the power of touring in a band and singing someone else’s beautiful songs night after night. In a moment of extreme chaos and conflict in my life, the context and meaning of the song changed for me. It suddenly felt like a rallying cry to stick with music despite it feeling like a hopeless endeavor: ‘I will not back down.'”

Kalb explains further that the triumphant and hopeful song “is a declaration of defiance against a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, the recognition that although everything in my life seemed to be crumbling away, that nevertheless making art and continuing to live my life despite hardship was the most important thing. But that realization came with a caveat: that if I was going to continue with art, I needed to fundamentally change myself, and my relationship to having a life in music. ‘Deep in the stars, or wherever you are, I need to find you’ – these final lines, sung in the same pitched register as the quotation from ‘WTF’ are about the universality of music, how hiding somewhere deep in the universe is a primal force we can sometimes tap into to create beauty, and to rise above the pettiness of earthly experience. Art is the only thing that connects us to something higher than ourselves, and I need to live life in search of something greater than me.”

Bellows
The Rose Gardener
Top Shelf Records

Housekeeping
Accidents Happen
In Silence
Rosebush
Stupidest Thing
Innocent in Ignorance
Denouement
What Can I Tell You About the World?
Gather Ye Rosebuds
The Rose Gardener
Judgment
The Tower
Count ‘Em Down

Bellows
Live Dates

3/1 – Albany, NY @ Chateau
3/2 – Kingston, NY @ BSP
3/3 – Boston, MA @ O’Brien’s #
3/7 – Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade
3/8 – Philadelphia, PA @ PhilaMOCA #
3/9 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong #
3/10 – Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight*
3/11 – Nashville, TN @ DRKMTTR*
3/12 – Little Rock, AR @ White Water Tavern*
3/13 – Austin, TX @ Topshelf Records Official SXSW Showcase @ Cheer Up Charlie’s*
3/14 – Denton, TX @ J&J’s Pizza
3/16 – Austin, TX @ FRIEND OASIS @ SXSW*
3/17 – New Orleans, LA @ The Starlight*
3/18 – Atlanta, GA @ 529*
3/19 – Durham, NC @ Duke Coffeehouse*
3/20 – Baltimore, MD @ Joe Squared*

# = w/ Shannen Moser
* = w/ Another Michael