Hailing from Southern Ontario, Del Bel are a group who consistently incorporate genres and sounds that range from orchestral to pop, groovy to cinematic. Their latest record III, released this past spring via Missed Connection Records, opens with an incredibly trippy feature by Toronto rapper Clairmont The Second that immediately sets the album’s strong and experimental nature.
Today, Del Bel drop their second new music video taken from the album. “If I Was a Fool” is a jazzy number, lead by the sultry and inviting vocals of songwriter Lisa Conway, that has been set to a visual accompaniment directed by Hamilton’s Billy Moon. The artist’s style of animation proved to be a perfect fit for the track.
Billy Moon says: “I had made some animation using some lamps that I had built out of paper mâché for another project, and I ended up not using any of it. Tyler (Belluz) and I had talked about doing a video, so he sent me their record. I was so taken by the moodiness of the song that I figured the lamp animations would be a perfect. The story is based off of a British animated short that I saw as a kid taking some summer cartooning class. I wanted to make something kind of uncanny that would touch on reincarnation, dark irony, life and death; all the things that kids in summer camp think about, especially when it’s a Christian camp.”
Del Bel’s bandleader/composer Tyler Belluz offered his own thoughts on the collaboration: “I’m in a fortunate situation being a publicist and running a small label that allows me to constantly see and hear music related content months before it officially sees the light of day. In the case of representing Dan Edmonds in multiple ways, found me working with Billy Moon’s animation and video directing that ultimately led us to have a few conversations about his process. Under the circumstances Billy was into making a video with zero artistic wants and desires on my end, which allowed him to be fully creative on his own accord, and was more than pleased with his end result. “
Watch the video for “If I Was A Fool” above and be sure to hear Del Bel’s III in full if you have yet to.