Following the Mothertime EP released last April, Kalbells has shared a new track called ‘Hump The Beach’. Kalmia Traver, the multi-instrumentalist and songwriter behind the project, co-produced the track with Luke Temple (Art Feynman, Here We Go Magic). ‘Hump The Beach’ comes with an accompanying video directed collectively by Traver and her bandmates Zoë Brecher (Hush Puppy, Sad13), Sarah Pedinotti (LipTalk, Okkervil River), and Angelica Bess (Body Language), who all star in the video both as themselves and as characters. Traver commented on the making of the video:

“We co-directed & created this video as a band and used emergent strategy (a philosophy explored by one of our heroes, writer Adrienne Maree Brown) to create the treatment. It was our first time being all in one place together since the beginning of COVID and being, dreaming & creating together was a healing explosion of joy. We have always loved styling ourselves and each other for photo shoots and live shows, and we knew we wanted a beach involved, and plenty of humping, and so the treatment emerged from there. During the making of this song and video we have been employing a technique we call the “radical love experiment” to communicate our desires and get to a better place where we all feel heard and held. The only rule of the experiment (so far – it’s an experiment!) is that we are each allowed to say how we feel and the other person/people must listen. So far so good!”

Watch the video below.

There’s a new EP on the way from Kalbells, the project of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Kalmia Traver. Entitled Mothertime and slated for an April 10th release through NNA Tapes, the EP features four tracks and was co-produced by Jeremy Malvin aka Chrome Sparks. Ahead of its release, Kalbells has shared the exuberant lead single ‘Cool and Bendable’, a track inspired “by a dream in which she held her yet-unborn child”, explains the press release, “but as Kal finished writing the song in the studio with Jeremy, she realized it was actually about holding herself, a body, a life.” In Kal’s own words, she was also “celebrating in awe the general aliveness of our world, Earth.”

‘Cool and Bendable’ comes with a brilliant accompanying music video directed by Charles Billot. Here it is.