Here Today: The Timeliness of Bellman From time to time, the everyday world of popular music carries with it the potential to surprise us. This is a distinct trait of musics timelessness as well as its lineage: Music is, after all, a bearer of history as well as a mouthpiece for our own experience. Mostly, it is perhaps no more than a soundtrack to our lives, something that makes a reassuring noise in the background. Sometimes, though, the music breaks through the barrier of the daily grind and reaches out to touch us directly. The young Norwegian singer-songwriter Bellman is clearly one such artist: one who is able to let his music speak to us, in a voice which makes us sit up and pay attention. The music also reinforces the voice of Bellman himself. It is immediate, direct, to the point. Yet the singer is never drowned out by the music; he never gives way to simple solutions of musical trickery. And the voice suits the music elegantly. Bellmans music is the world turned inside out: fragile sounds are brought up front while the rock band is restrained, subdued. Elegant strings and glockenspiel are foregrounded. Distorted guitars form a solid, dynamic bedrock, but they never erupt; rather, they bubble beneath the surface, hinting at their potential rather than overstating it. The voice, rising from the cauldron of music, provides elements of surprise, running first forwards, then backwards, then forwards again. The studio offers a cornucopia of possibilities to any ...