Bell Monks

Bell Monks is music for the fog on nights that stretch into dawns, combining simple humming lines with swirling textures.

The band is a collaboration with composer/ music technologist Eric Sheffield. Generally, Eric does all the drums and guitars, I do the vocals and keyboards, and we share writing and recording duties. A number of guest musicians have worked with us, including a few who have worked with us on multiple occasions: Heidi E. Johnson (vocals), Ben Willis (contrabass), Trevor Saint (glockenspiel), and Gregory Taylor (remixes).

In 2010 we released Lullabies, an album nearly 5 years in the making.

Throughout 2011, we recorded and released a 2-track album each month, almost 2 hours of original songs. We collected our favorite tracks into 2012’s Let The Waves Carry Us, along with an second disc of remixes by some really cool electronic musicians. The disc was named one of Madison’s 10 best local releases in 2012.

In 2013, we released a joint covers EP with SK Pierce entitled A Better Light.

We released Big Bay in 2016, which we recorded in Northern Michigan in summer 2013 and slowly edited over a couple of years.

An all-instrumental release through clang records includes our good friend, Gregory Taylor.

Here’s a cool video by Bill Miller that uses Gregory Taylor’s Remix of Witching Hour, Called Whirling Halves:

After many years of methodical work, we released The Sun Will Find You, our first full-length album with vocals since 2012’s Let The Waves Carry Us.

Here’s our video for All My Life, from The Sun Will Find You:

2024 sees the release of our album, Watching The Snow Fall, through Wayside & Woodland recordings. W&W is the home label for epic45, which has long been one of our biggest influences:

Here’s our video for Dim the Lights, the first song from the Watching The Snow Fall: