BRISTOL / CINEMATIC SONGWRITING / EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC
There’s a side of Bristol music that has always preferred the strange, the atmospheric and the slightly unsettling. The Sounds of Ursa feel like a continuation of that spirit, but they’re doing something entirely their own. Their music is cinematic, often beautiful, occasionally very dark, and not particularly interested in fitting a convenient category.
The band is led by Bristol singer, pianist, songwriter and composer Helen Stanley. Drummer James Phillips is another key presence. I know them both well: Helen plays keyboards and James plays drums alongside me and Andy Taylor in The Rumble-O’s. Ursa is a very different musical world from our instrumental surf-rock adventures.
Helen’s writing is at the centre of it all. The Sounds of Ursa are a functioning five-piece: Helen Stanley on vocals, piano and keyboards, James Phillips on drums, Arthur Foulstone on bass, Boris Ming on violin and Mike Kingston on guitar. Around Helen’s songs they build shifting arrangements of strings, guitars, bass, keyboards and drums. The music can drift into something almost weightless before gathering into a much more powerful, post-rock sound.
Patience Panacea
The six-track Patience Panacea EP, released in October 2020, grew out of songs Helen wrote during a difficult period of personal change. There are themes of loss, resilience and recovery, but the music refuses to stay in one emotional place.
Its instrumentation is marvellously unusual: Wurlitzer electric piano, electric violin, vibes, hammered dulcimer, harmonium, musical saw and waterphone all appear. The closing track, Forbidden, was recorded live at Bristol’s Kings Weston House by drummer and recording engineer Greg White, who I also play with in quasimodal.
Live and on tape
The first full-band shows were in 2019. Two songs recorded live to half-inch tape at New Cut Studios in Bristol that year — Keep Rowing and Inevitable Tides of Change — were released as The Tape Sessions (Live) in April 2021.
Watch The Sounds of Ursa — The Tape Sessions directly on YouTube
The Sounds of Ursa also played Screaming Keys at the Cube in June 2023, with visuals by Sloon, and appeared at Unorthodox Paradox Festival that August. There’s something pleasing about hearing such carefully constructed songs performed with the dynamics and unpredictability of a live band.
To my ears, they keep the moody, experimental side of Bristol alive while taking it somewhere new. It’s very much worth spending some time with this music.
Listen to The Sounds of Ursa on Bandcamp · Watch the New Cut Studios session