reviews of scythe e.p.:

Incredible. Layers of gorgeous, mesmerizing, rumbling hooks
Ladyfest Newcastle

These tracks are winners
Brighton Source

Beautifully-layered string lines; electric cellist extraordinaire!
Totally Radio

An incredible artiste: an honour to hear someone so at one with their instrument
Ben Jones, Twelve Stone Toddler

reviews of kissing nettles:

Excellent
Mark Russell, Mixing It, BBC Radio 3

This current crop of cello improvisations scales new panoramic elevations of foreboding. The detail of the convergent and superimposed loops Bela generates is remarkable. I’ve never heard a classical instrument sound like this before. And neither have you.
Slightly Off-Kilter magazine

Kissing Nettles is brilliant!
Black Rabbit, Wrong Music

live reviews

From the stable of God Speed/Mogwai and Joanna Newsom, Bela is our very own UK leftfield cello virtuoso; strings/foot pedals and energy collide in a blissful wall of sounds
Anna Moulson, Melting Vinyl/Live Reel

The main act, Bela, is definitely something special. She’s intense. Her basic cello sound rubs your back then all these fantastic percussiony sounds from pop and whiz funk it up. Loop it in, cut it out, punch back in. Schizo-fucking-freenia with a good dose of doubt. The modern state of mind? Sure
Richard Radio

Mesmerising, sumptuous, and transfixing: shatteringly human sounds from string and bow
Cathryn Setz, BBC Southern Counties

Fantastic night! The single’s just great too
Melita Dennett, BBC Southern Counties

Brilliant use of string sonics
David Handforth, Post Office Records

Extraordinary
Nick Pynn, violinist

Amazing!
Britch

St Andrews Church is the perfect place for a Bela Emerson gig - in this case, a one-off special to celebrate the release of her vinyl debut, the seven-inch single Scythe. The church is still consecrated ground; red wine is banned lest if offend His Lordship and the very atmosphere compels you to speak in whispers. Which kinda suits Bela’s music - as do the vaulted ceilings and palpable sense of holiness. After all, such music - spontaneous, improvised, wrought from the moment- more than most seems gifted from some other, more sacred place. One’s thoughts should be on higher things.

To say Bela plays the cello is like saying Van Gogh paints pictures; it’s a fact, yes, but one which falls woefully short of the mark. Watching her perform, one realises for a start that the cello plays Bela just as much as she plays it. It’s a mutual thang. And it can’t be avoided that the woman and her instrument make sexy music. Not in an obvious way - this is not the bump ‘n’ grind of funk or the sleazy posturing of rock ‘n’ roll; rather, Bela and her cello exude the intimate intensity of two lovers utterly at ease with each other, who know exactly what makes each other tick and are comfortable enough to let go the hang-ups and get experimental.

Skeletal motifs are plucked and bowed; fingers caress and drum the cello’s neck and body and get looped into abstraction, becoming raindrops and footsteps, ticking clocks and faraway voices. Rhythms build, dissipate and overtake each other in the electronic ether as player and played circle each other in mutual seduction, the music about mere notes and chords as much as sex is about mere… well, you fill in the rest.

She plays two pieces. I think. It’s difficult to remember. You don’t think of these sorts of gigs in those terms; it’s kind of a consuming experience, especially sat where we were, in the front pew. I’ve seen Bela before and she’s always captivating but this was something else; this time she went one further.

You always hear this stuff about the artist as shaman, gifted with contact with a parallel realm; of their work happening through them, as if they’re a vessel for something else, something beyond conscious control. I’ll swear this is the deal with Bela tonight - lost to the music, all closed eyes and hair tumbling wildly over her a black and red flamenco dress. That dress can be no coincidence. The Spanish flamenco gypsies live for El Duende, the spirit of passion that possesses their guitars and their drives their stamping feet. Watching Bela up there, writhing in front of the altar, cello gripped between her thighs and stilletoed feet stabbing at the welter of electronics sprawled before her, then I get the feeling that if I’m not in the presence of El Duende now, then I never will be.

The electrifying performance ends, as it should, to riotous applause. Bela tries to thank us, but is beyond words.
Church should always be like this.

Jon Seagrave, Don’t Feed The Poets