Stream: Herbert Bail Orchestra, ‘You Are Beautiful’

Daiana Feuer on June 8th, 2015

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Gypsy folk band Herbert Bail Orchestra has a go-big-or-go-home attitude. From theatrical live shows, coordinated old-time outfits, and a speakeasy-inspired sound, nothing they do is understated. The band’s new single “You Are Beautiful” has it all. Its train-shuffling rhythm blooms and sprawls into an orchestral landscape pulled to crescendo with horns, accordion, keys, strings, and leader/singer Anthony Frattolillo emphatically repeating the words, “You know that you are beautiful …” The song was conceived a few years ago spontaneously during an epic 20-minute jam session at the Lightning In A Bottle music festival. It was 3 a.m. and the song came to life with improvised lyrics. While the tightly produced studio version has all its pieces in the right place, the simple, repeated lyrics encapsulate an immediacy in the song’s creation. The new song is the first we’ve heard Herbert Bail Orchestra since February, when the band debuted an epic 12-minute music video for “The Nature Of Things,” from its 2013 album “The Future’s in the Past.” Since the scruffy dog in the video resembles my dog, the video is particularly upsetting, but nevertheless a good-looking piece of work, well-shot and colored in bleak vintage desert tones. It came from the mind of award-winning German director Björn Rühmann, who is You Tube-famously known for an awesome commercial about wind. Back when “The Nature Of Things” video came out, it was announced as the first of a video trilogy collaboration with Rühmann. We look forward to seeing what follows, but please, no more dog-centered tragedies.

||| Stream: “You Are Beautiful”