Photo by Dusdin Condren
Brooklyn’s Bear In Heaven found a novel way of building some buzz for their last album, 2012’s I Love You, It’s Cool: they created an alternate version of the record by slowing it down 400,000% and streamed the whole thing once via their website (which took about four months). It was an interesting (and funny) stunt, highlighting the band’s melding of the high-minded with their love of the sheer texture of sounds. Each of their three albums has paired moments of electronic beauty with complex, pounding rhythms, like dance music crafted in a laboratory instead of a club.
Album number four, Time Is Over One Day Old (out August 5), doesn’t come with any stunts, but it’s still plenty experimental. The songs have a serpentine quality to them, beginning in one place before ending in another place altogether. The title and artwork hints at a love of all things cosmic, and throughout Time the band reaches for the stars, both lyrically and musically. Album opener “Autumn” rides waves of synths and sound effects while frontman Jon Philpot sings of autumn, drones, Lazarus, pleasure, and pressure–and abruptly, the song comes to an end. It’s a scene-setter, paving the way for a unique sound to follow.
Catch Bear In Heaven at the Parish on Thursday, August 28.
