If Sufjan Stevens was on a Beatles kick and stumbled upon a lost track from Beck’s Sea Change, it may sound like “All This Time,” a handful of broken romances distilled into one story. Boy wants girl, but plays it cool. She feels rejected and moves on. Boy comes crawling back, and she wants nothing to do with him. Rinse and repeat. The dogged heart defies the brain, again and again. After all this time I still spend all this time on you. It’s only fitting to release this yearning love song on Valentine’s Day.
Before starting Van Bellman last year, singer/guitarist Zac Taylor was writing and producing songs with other bands and artists. “I initially wrote ‘All This Time’ for Connell Cruise, who was label mates with my other band American Authors on Island Records a couple years ago, but has since moved back to South Africa where he just won Dancing With the Stars. But I always loved this song and I didn’t want it to fall through the cracks.”
“I’m mainly a guitarist but I love writing on piano because I can come across some happy accidents. That’s where the piano riff came from: a toy piano gathering dust in the corner of Mission Sound studio with one broken key, which you can hear in the track if you listen closely. I composed the string section digitally and had my friends Marie Kim (currently playing keys for Mitski) and Andy Baldwin (acclaimed mixing engineer for Björk, Cat Power, St Lucia, yours truly) replace it with actual cello and violin, which is truly a sonic treat in today’s digital age.”
The first three Van Bellman releases are all a bit different from each other. Sirius XM’s AltNation debuted the first single “I Hate To See You This Way,” a “bluesy rock and indie pop track that hits you hard from the second it starts and never seems to lose its momentum” (Live Nation’s Ones to Watch). “Gold & Blue” is “more of a pop anthem than the darkly ambient first single” (Billboard). “All This Time” is a forlorn love song with more orchestral elements and straightforward storyline.
Van Bellman has hit the ground running since its inception less than a year ago and shows no signs of slowing down.
“All This Time” will be available everywhere the week of Valentine’s Day.
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