Fresh from a string of killer sermons at South By Southwest, shout outs from Grizzly Bear, a nice Best New Music high five from Pitchfork, and critical acclaim across the board, Brooklyn’s Bear In Heaven come to town providing the inaugural performance at new DIY art space Land of Tomorrow in downtown Louisville.
Incorporating shades of expansive shoegaze, dusk lit electronica, motorik experimentalism, and pop ambient through a warm washed digital canvas, Bear In Heaven’s dream-like Beast Rest Forth Mouth is one of the strongest releases you’re likely to hear anytime soon. The soaring and textured songs, held together by the engaging and almost-classic-rock vocal stylings of Jon Philpot, transcend all the labels that the blogarati tends to toss out like samples of Tide. It make sense that Bear In Heaven exist in some cerebral nougat interior somewhere between prog and pop, dance rhythms and psychedelic meditation – as Philpot fleshed out many of his compositional approaches in the avant Presocratics, guitarist Adam Willis wielding a divining rod for Rhys Chatham, and Joe Stickney decimated drum sticks in the Boredoms’ 88 Boadrum orchestra. Outside the pedigree, Bear in Heaven’s nuanced, lush, and deceptively catchy body of work translates on another epic plane on the stage. This performance is not to be missed!
“Bear in Heaven’s greatest trick is creating music that evokes the sort of physicality and scope that could soundtrack a Hollywood film, but also works equally well at stirring up intimate bodily passion.” – Pitchfork
“Bear in Heaven have shown themselves to be a major creative force. Their invention and imagination, mingled with their astute pop nous have combined to produce an album which is fit to stand toe to toe with most that will be released this year. There is so much to enjoy here.” – Drowned in Sound
Shedding started as the sludgy and slow burning solo project of Connor Bell almost a decade ago, until Bell made a definitive move away from the hermetically sealed confines of his sample-collage/electro-acoustic soundscapes back towards more extroverted forms of expression. For these ends he conscripted Louisville underground rock stalwarts Tim Furnish and Joey Yates, themselves having emanated from the arcane climes of combos like Crain, Parlour, and Sapat. Shedding has become a band, leaving behind its intangible chrysalis to emerge a full-blooded, flesh and bone concern. They trade in the angularity that blossomed in the late seventies and came to fruition in the mid-nineties. They aspire to the Motorik pulse that drove Teutonic progressive, but feel just as comfortable trolling around in the cannabis-infused primordial drone-grooves espoused by some adherents of the Canterbury school of lysergically enhanced musical experimentation.
The show acts as the “soft opening” of Land of Tomorrow, 233 W. Broadway. Land of Tomorrow is a new collaborative art space that will feature music, installations, and community events. While admission to the show is free, patrons are encouraged to donate a few dollars to the organization. The larger grand opening happens at the end of September, when the final design and vision of Land of Tomorrow will be ready for all to see. Keep your eyes peeled.
Bear In Heaven with Shedding
Sunday, August 1st
Land of Tomorrow
233 W. Broadway, Louisville (map that shizz)
7:30 p.m. / 21+ / Free, Donations Encouraged
Presented by Crash Avenue and The Decibel Tolls
POSSIBLY RELEVANT :::
[SXSW] Bear In Heaven – Emo’s Annex, Austin – 3.17.10
Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
MP3 :::
Bear in Heaven – Deafening Love
READ THE ORIGINAL POST
