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Event
The Spirit of the Beehive w/ Strange Ranger, Camp Counselor, Swollen
the spirit of the beehive. (Philadelphia, PA)
https://thespiritofthebeehive.bandcamp.com/
The Spirit of the Beehive have a fascination with contrast. The cover of their 2015 EP YOU ARE ARRIVED (but youve been cheated) juxtaposes the rare beauty of an urban sewer canal during sunset, with a washed-up body of a young woman sprawled peacefully beside some floating trash. The album
that followed, 2017s pleasure suck, explored the sick irony of pain brought on from overindulging in bliss.
Its first track featured the line, pleasure sucks the life out of everyone, and the records erratic naturespontaneous shifts from flowery psych-pop into dissonant passages of grimy distortionevoked the discordant effect frequent substance use has on ones psyche.
Hypnic Jerks, the Philly quintets third full-length and second for Tiny Engines, sounds like, as frontman Zack Schwartz puts it, the state between wakefulness and sleep. Its named after the involuntary muscle spasms that can happen right as someone begins dozing off, a perfect feeling to compare the albums drowsy yet restless character to. Unlike the spiraling momentum of pleasure suck, The Spirit of the Beehive took a more grounded approach with Hypnic Jerks, though the ground theyre standing on is equally otherworldly. Dreamy is a fitting adjective, but the songs never fully slip into the peaceful yet
backgrounded character of dream-pop. Rather than an ongoing fantasy, the record has the quality of an indescribable dream fading from memory as you slowly begin to regain consciousness. Its warped guitar tones, transcendental synths, and smattering of eerie audio samplesmost come from bassist Rivka Ravedes old family recordings, which Schwartz sifted through and edited togetherconjure this purgatorial space between reverie and reality.
An arena where their songs unexpectedly contort themselves and take on different textures, morphing in and out of one another. These tracks were initially designed to comprise a short mixtape, which explains the records nebulous structure. If youre not paying close attention to the tracklist, they could easily be mistaken for one, long song.
The first two, nail I couldnt bite and mantra is repeated, are mid-paced, ethereal bops that sound like if Donovan was informed by The Microphones. They verge on soothing, but theyre quickly followed by the albums loudest cuts; the tubular fell asleep with a vision and can I receive the contact? the shouted ending of the latter being the point where you realize Hypnic Jerks is, deceivingly, not an album one can easily knock out to. d.o.u.b.l.e.u.r.o.n.g. begins with a minute-and-a-half- long sample of what once was a cute recording of a grandfather narrating a visit with his grandkids. Here, the band coated it with haunting reverb, scraped it with vocal processors, and uses it to transition into whats both the prettiest and grimmest pop song the Beatles never wrote. Im saying things all wrong / Im doing things all wrong / now everything is wrong, Schwartz sings with a quivering intonation, as if hes physically holding back tears.
However, its the celestial harmonies, balmy keys and creeping false climax of album closer its gonna find you that secures The Spirit of the Beehive a seat at this decades table of musical visionaries. The track ends with a similarly whirring sample to the one the record began with, finally rocking you off to
sleep after ten songs, but leaving you with the undying curiosity to play back what you think you just heard. Jerking your mind awake yet again. (bio by Eli Enis)
Strange Ranger (Philadelphia, PA)
https://strangeranger.bandcamp.com/
Camp Counselor (St. Louis)
https://ittakestimerecords.bandcamp.com/album/rose-ceremony
830pm - doors
9pm - show
$10 adv / $13 dos
All Ages
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LocationFoam (View)
3359 Jefferson St
Saint Louis, MO 63118
United States
Categories
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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