Bella Ruse’s combination of airy folk and crunchy pop transforms rooms into secret gardens and paints pictures of invading bombardiers, salty sea love, and super glued hearts. Surrounded by a laboratory of instruments – typewriter, suitcase organ, glockenspiel, and kazoos – singer Kay Gillette’s antique voice and Joseph Barker’s mournful guitar twist and twirl and dip and dive and carry you deep down the rabbit-hole into their magical musical world.
They’ve been traveling the country in a van powered by vegetable oil for two years, opening for Sarah Mclachlan, Heart, and Kate Nash along the way. Their songs have been heard on MTV and Showtime and their most recent album, KUHZOO, spent eight weeks on the CMJ Radio Top 200. They were the Needle in the Haystack artist on MTVmusic.com and Performer Magazine calls Gillette’s voice ‘truly unique.’
In 2010 their song ‘Push On’ was handpicked by Sarah Mclachlan and Terry McBride as a winner of the Lilith Fair talent search competition and Bella Ruse was offered a spot at the nationally touring festival. Kay joined Sarah, Ann Wilson, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison on stage for the final number at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
After their album Kuhzoo charted on the CMJ Top 200, Bella Ruse went on a midwest radio tour which culminated in Cincinnati’s Midpoint Music Fest, where they were named one of the weekend’s must see acts along with Mates of State, The Album Leaf and The Low Anthem.