Tele Novella

There are highways in parts of Texas that feel as if they might go on forever. Travel along one of these roads, and you’ll see it stretches across seemingly infinite land in every direction. Stop into one of the small towns along the way, and you’ll see it stretches across time as well. Artifacts of life and culture that larger cities tend to ignore are perfectly preserved here: the strange, the intimate, the forgotten, the haunted. Tele Novella began with Natalie Ribbons and Jason Chronis traveling these roads, exploring these towns, and mining for gems along the way. Natalie, who owns a vintage shop, and Jason, who collects rare records, were each making music in separate projects at the time (Agent Ribbons, Voxtrot, Belaire), but a collaboration between them soon developed, and from the outset, their music embraced these eclectic and eccentric influences. Now, after several years supported by a full band, producing critically-acclaimed recordings and touring nationally, the pair have returned to their roots and relocated from Austin to Lockhart, Texas, where they have recorded their most heartfelt and personal record to date. Merlyn Belle, Tele Novella’s first release on Kill Rock Stars, is the first true realization of the minimalist creative bricolage that originally inspired the band. Turning down the unlimited options offered by modern recording technology, they adopted a more restrained approach: Songs would be written and recorded one at a time. Each part would be recorded in whole takes, rather than assembled through editing. And the entire album would be tracked onto an 8-track cassette recorder. “Working with one song at a time allowed us to view each as its own world,” Jason says. The fact that these worlds all fit together is partly due to the self-imposed constraints, which required creative resourcefulness at every turn. The duo enlisted veteran engineer Danny Reisch for the painstaking task, and his expertise in crafting lush pop recordings helped b