Violet Bell's upcoming release Shapeshifter features original music by Lizzy Ross & Omar Ruiz-Lopez, recoded with Tatiana Hargreaves, Joe Troop, Joseph Terrell & Libby Rodenbough(Mipso), Sinclair Palmer (The Muslims), Jo MacPhail, Austin McCall (Jonathan Byrd & The Pickup Cowboys), and Grammy-nominated producer Jason Richmond (The Avett Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, Rising Appalachia)

Shapeshifter

Junkie

Mortal Like Me

Morning Girl

I am a Wolf

Flying Free

Fisherman's Daughter

Back to the Sea

Violet Bell's upcoming release "Back to the Sea," features original music by Lizzy Ross & Omar Ruiz-Lopez, recoded with Tatiana Hargreaves, Joe Troop, Joseph Terrell & Libby Rodenbough(Mipso), Sinclair Palmer (The Muslims), Jo MacPhail, Austin McCall (Jonathan Byrd & The Pickup Cowboys), and Grammy-nominated producer Jason Richmond (The Avett Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, Rising Appalachia)

Fish to Catch

All the Stars

“Making the best possible use of the atmospheric, captivating vocals of Lizzy Ross, Durham folk duo Violet Bell puts an eerie, vaguely avant-garde twist on traditional roots music, suggesting the lovely but slightly askew early John Cale releases. Garnished with beauty but fraught with an underlying menace, tunes like “Dream the Wheel” under score the interplay between Ross and multi-instrumentalist Omar Ruiz-Lopez.” (Indy Weekly)

Violet Bell cites a wide range of influences – from Debussy to Neil Young, Nina Simone to Lou Reed, their unique sound blends folk, soul, bluegrass, blues, and classical. Their songs are otherworldly yet made from the stuff of everyday life, exploring questions of intergenerational change, our relationship to Earth, and the human emotional experience.

At the heart of Violet Bell is live performance. Since their inception in March 2016, Violet Bell has played over 200 shows, earning fans from FL to VT with long stretches on the road. On stage, the energy between Ross and Ruiz-Lopez is fiery, intimate and intuitive. Their sound is true to the mutating nature of music, as life on the road continually brings fresh inspiration into the mix.

Expanding to multi-track in the studio, Violet Bell keeps live performance at the core of their debut release Dream the Wheel.  Ross sings and plays guitar, as Ruiz-Lopez adds violin, viola, cello, keys, guitar and vocal harmonies. The result is alchemical; emotionally evocative music that “sounds like a beautiful dream turned sudden nightmare.”(IW)

Take the album’s title track, “Dream the Wheel,” which speaks to a fearlessly inclusive view of life’s cyclical polarities. “Sing, sing, everything/ Comes and goes and comes again/ Let it out and let it in/ Let it be your medicine,” “No such thing/ as too far/ or too deep/ or too dark.” In the modern era of rising seas and informational flooding, Ross’s lyrics are either chilling or comforting – it’s yours to interpret.

The album cover, a medicine wheel that Ruiz-Lopez and Ross crafted from local NC flora, speaks to the origins of the music. Violet Bell is rooted firmly in the natural world and the community from which they’ve grown. The September 15 release show for Dream the Wheel featured three members of the Durham Kidznotes All-Star string ensemble, whom Ruiz-Lopez has helped to teach since 2011. For Violet Bell, that kind of community connection is a big-picture goal. Says Ruiz-Lopez, “We’ve seen how music can transform lives and communities for the better.  We want to know, how can we help plant seeds of change for our children’s generation?”

Prior to Violet Bell, Ruiz-Lopez honed his chops on the road with Jonathan Byrd and Crystal Bright, and composed several original pieces for the Durham Symphony Orchestra. Ross has been a two-time Kerrville New Folk finalist and won Floydfest’s On the Rise contest, a Carolina Music Award, and an Emerging Artist Grant from the Durham Arts Council.

As Violet Bell, Ross and Ruiz-Lopez become a dynamic musical force that’s greater than either one of them alone. There is a quiet power building in their music, a brave and playful spirit that’s willing to dance with shadow and light.

Violet Bell is currently touring their debut Dream the Wheel and recording their sophomore album for release in 2018.

Dream The Wheel

Write My Lines

“A very beautiful canvas of earthy, acoustic music, with some of the best arrangements I have heard on this show… Ross channels the spirit of Eva Cassidy, and Ruiz-Lopez's violin performance is chocolate... Absolutely gorgeous.” - Michael Jonathan, Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour

Lizzy Ross and Omar Ruiz-Lopez are floating in the Eno River, someplace between Durham and Hillsborough. 

A fierce summer sun beats down. Minnows nudge them. They float, holding onto large rocks and letting the current point their feet downstream. Kids wade by, headed from the gentle waterfall to the inches-deep ford. 

As two humans navigating life together, Ross and Ruiz-Lopez are present; the only moment is now and the only location is here. As a band, as North Carolina progressive folk duo Violet Bell, they are present; a recording is not expected to be the platonic ideal, the authoritative version of a song, but just one brief window of its lifetime. And that sense of letting go and leaning in, of accepting that spirit and heart count far more than the myth of the perfect take, is central to Violet Bell's debut LP, Honey in My Heart.

"When you're standing on the edge of fear and you have that deep desire to control… I think it is ego stuff, because the ego is the one that gets scared." Ross says, "If we let go and let it flow, we’ll come out of the studio with something that feels alive."

Accordingly, Honey in My Heart is vibrant, full of ebbing and flowing emotion; full of passion, fear, hope, angst, frustration, humor — all the messy emotions comprising the worthwhile chaos of the human experience. Stylistically, the songs take familiar Americana textures and bend them in surprising directions. The album draws from all over the spectrum, ranging from folky psychedelia to subtle jazz and experimental indie-pop. Honey in My Heart is what happens when two musicians at the top of their craft share the same sandbox.

To make these songs feel alive, Violet Bell rewrote its own norms and expectations. Honey in My Heart was recorded largely live. If there were mistakes in the best take, that didn't stop it from being the best take. "We didn't do scratch tracks," Ross says, “Once we got into the room together, it felt so good. The songs are just what came out.”

Ruiz-Lopez is quieter than Ross. He considers his words, then speaks in terms of ideals, of acoustic instruments, of teaching children to play music and of bringing things of beauty into the world. Indeed, each half of Violet Bell has dedicated their life to the pursuit of music: Ross as a songwriter who briefly tried her hand in Nashville before returning to more receptive soil in North Carolina; Ruiz-Lopez as a music educator and sideman who plays a staggering array of instruments (violin, viola, cello, guitar, mandolin, banjo). From his work with Kidznotes, a nonprofit that offers instrument lessons to underserved Durham schoolchildren, to his collaborations with Triangle-area musicians and membership in bands like Jonathan Byrd and the Pickup Cowboys,  Ruiz-Lopez was a busy musician for years before Violet Bell.  "For a long time I had wanted to work with something I felt really aligned with," he says. "Lizzy came, and all of the sudden there's this depth while there is light." 

Ross thinks melodically and lyrically, while Ruiz-Lopez thinks in tones, textures and colors. To him, an arrangement is a Rubik's Cube — a satisfying challenge that is solved by different changes, sections and timbres. As a multi-instrumentalist, Ruiz-Lopez has a broad sonic palette at his disposal. A consistent soundscape throughout a record is uninteresting to Ruiz-Lopez, as is undue obedience to genre. As simple as it sounds, his tools are rhythm, harmony and melody.

"We need things of beauty and not just products," he says. "If people open to the arts and creativity in general, we can make the world a better place and more colorful. The tribute is to beauty when you make song and raise a joyous noise."

Write My Lines

Violet Bell

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