1. Living With Trees
2. Shatnerface
3. Atmosphere
4. Slicer
5. A Beating Heart
6. My Insides
7. Faster than a Bullet
8. Genesis
9. Pluto Will Have Her Revenge

Best Of 1999-2010
Album Details

This is an experimental album composed in 2006 to coincide with an art project. Ruela Bel wanted to try it's hand at techno/electronic music in order incorporate new elements to their style. While mostly still in demo form, the track "Living With Trees" really begins to showcase the new sound and direction the band is going in.

While Ruela Bel has only spent a total of 7 hours in the studio they have been able to produce some interesting sounds. "Overrated" "Monticello" and "Rain+Hail" come from these sessions. The rest of the tracks presented here are a compilation of the best songs from "Waiting in the Rafters" and "Embra" and the incidental songs not written specifically for an album. "Theme From Straw Man" is a good example of something that falls into this category. While not polished, it has the beginnings of a great song. Songs like "Songflowers" only exist because of the short working time Ruela Bel was able to collaborate. Typically a "draft" take is composed and then overdubs eventually shape the final recording. Jarrod was not able to complete his vocals at the time and only had "filler" lyrics composed. David was able to ad a spoken word section and then reuse the same vocal track from the previous verse. "White Raimnet" is another song composed by Jarrod Probe that suffers from poor production. The original recording exists on a 4-track cassette tape recorder and was hastitly mixed on the fly while being transfered to the computer. Despite the recordings flaws the genious of the song is readily apparent.

It was a strange time for Ruela Bel. "Waiting In the Rafters" had to both be better produced and have better songs than "Embra". Primary composer, David Branstetter, felt it was necessary to emulate the sounds of the then envouge band "Radiohead". Many of the recordings from the time are dark and obtuse, with an emphases on the strange. Technov was a cut an paste track that contained many different elements randomly spliced together. Careful listeners would realize that the track would loop on itself, but as David Branstetter was famously quoted as saying" Who would want to do that?" The albums "rat" theme did not help make the record anymore appealing to critics and sales absolutely tanked.

The album does have it's bright spots. The track "Where they live" is an epic piano track written with a middle eastern flair. It perfectly captures the mood and intent of the album.

Embra was the first real push from composer David Branstetter to write music. Branstetter had been content with playing a passive role in the song writing processes. Known more for adding creativity to songs, Branstetter took a leap forward and decided to write a full length album.

In the intitial planning stages only three songs were composed but it was enough to get the ball rolling. It was also the first time that the name "Ruela Bel" would be used for the band. Two names that had been previously used were "Rue Label" (two words randomly picked from the dictionary) and "Rising Mechanical" (Probe had a habbit of reversing things just to be funny).

It took over 2 years to assemble the material into a working piece, but it eventually got done. A highlight from this period is the piano track "Makers Lament" which was an improvised recording that turned out extemely well. It's carefully trimmed down from a slightly longer take to create the final version.