Bear in Heaven
Small Black, ERAAS
Wed, December 5, 2012
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY
$15
Tickets
This event is 18 and over
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/event/174597/
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Bear in Heaven
After months of testing their limits and trusting their instincts, Bear in Heaven will emerge in April 2012 with I Love You, It's Cool, an album so vivid and visionary that it meets and even exceeds the confidence and calm its title suggests.
In 2010, Beast Rest Forth Mouth delighted listeners with the unexpected-futuristic rock music that didn't sound alien or bound to ostracize. Taking these songs from coast to coast and continent to continent, they learned that having fun with this music was copacetic, that they could delight a crowd while defying musical binaries. I Love You, It's Cool turns that realization into a peerless set of instant anthems.
Indeed, some of these songs are ready for the floor. In one a perfect guitar figure spirals through colossal drums and slabs of synthesizers. Elsewhere bliss booms in icy keyboards reflecting off a relentless throb. It's inescapable.
The intricacy and edge of Bear in Heaven's music is sharper than ever before. The programming is both complex and compelling, whether in the refracted rainbows or woven noisy matrices. Certainly, in places it feels like a hit, with hooks that instantly catch and bridges that curl a finger-lyrically, stylistically, temptingly-toward the dance floor. Bear In Heaven's mix of nostalgia and need is immediately relatable, too, bringing the band's exploratory sounds a little closer back to home before they exit in momentary space-rock ascendance, a readymade rock-club banger that erupts into a bold new direction.
I Love You, It's Cool is the first time Bear in Heaven has sounded so unapologetic and so evolved, so risky and so redeeming, so focused and so finessed. After years of restless exploration, this feels like a definitive arrival. I Love You, It's Cool is music written in the present tense but ready to speak to the future. The work is its own rarified reward.
In 2010, Beast Rest Forth Mouth delighted listeners with the unexpected-futuristic rock music that didn't sound alien or bound to ostracize. Taking these songs from coast to coast and continent to continent, they learned that having fun with this music was copacetic, that they could delight a crowd while defying musical binaries. I Love You, It's Cool turns that realization into a peerless set of instant anthems.
Indeed, some of these songs are ready for the floor. In one a perfect guitar figure spirals through colossal drums and slabs of synthesizers. Elsewhere bliss booms in icy keyboards reflecting off a relentless throb. It's inescapable.
The intricacy and edge of Bear in Heaven's music is sharper than ever before. The programming is both complex and compelling, whether in the refracted rainbows or woven noisy matrices. Certainly, in places it feels like a hit, with hooks that instantly catch and bridges that curl a finger-lyrically, stylistically, temptingly-toward the dance floor. Bear In Heaven's mix of nostalgia and need is immediately relatable, too, bringing the band's exploratory sounds a little closer back to home before they exit in momentary space-rock ascendance, a readymade rock-club banger that erupts into a bold new direction.
I Love You, It's Cool is the first time Bear in Heaven has sounded so unapologetic and so evolved, so risky and so redeeming, so focused and so finessed. After years of restless exploration, this feels like a definitive arrival. I Love You, It's Cool is music written in the present tense but ready to speak to the future. The work is its own rarified reward.
Small Black
The cover of Brooklyn-based Small Black's second LP, Limits of Desire, features a photo of a man and a woman embracing on either side of a ladder, completely naked, divided by its triangular arc. They're close, but they can't get any closer. It's a moving depiction of connectivity and interaction in the 21st century and it serves as a sort of source code for the record.
Limits of Desire is Small Black's most accomplished album yet. It's a crystalline realization of a sound they've been building toward since their self-titled EP in 2009. Now a full-time four piece, Josh Hayden Kolenik (keys, vocals), Ryan Heyner (guitar, keys, vocals), Juan Pieczanski (bass, guitar) and Jeff Curtin (drums, percussion), the band have moved way beyond the hazy home recorded sound of their previous releases toward a full-fledged, but still self-produced, clear approach. Where 2010’s New Chain was a lesson in maximalist pop, Limits of Desire finds the band trimming their sound to the essentials, yet hitting new and unexpected heights with the addition of live drums, electric guitar and trumpet to the existing Small Black palette.
Tonally the songs sweep and glide over lush keys, bolstered by lyrics that illustrate the semi-abstract moments of lost opportunities and misread signs, hinted at by the cover image. The title track whirls softly, and channels luminaries Tears for Fears and The Blue Nile, anchored by Pieczanski's punchy bass as Kolenik sings: "Other lives droned/ far from the grass where I lay/ each eye stared out the opposite way." As much as the record is about looking for deeper connections, it's also about avoiding real life, if only for a moment—getting out of your own head just long enough to calm down and find perspective.
“Free At Dawn” and “No Stranger” do what fans have come to love Small Black for, only better. They’re smart pop bangers tinged with a specific brand of melancholy that slowly build to night-affirming climaxes. While "Breathless” ups the tempo, over synth stabs, with lyrics that tackle apathy and uncertainty with catchy grace: "I'm standing in tomorrow's way/ future's fine/least it seems okay." It paints a concise portrait of a generation struggling with unlimited freedom and malaise.
The band builds on a rich history of synth pop by making a thoroughly modern album, on both the front and back end. One that seeks out cohesion, connection and calm in a world that won’t sit still. Limits of Desire doesn't attempt to provide any solutions, but coming to terms with not finding the answers feels infinitely more fruitful.
Limits of Desire is Small Black's most accomplished album yet. It's a crystalline realization of a sound they've been building toward since their self-titled EP in 2009. Now a full-time four piece, Josh Hayden Kolenik (keys, vocals), Ryan Heyner (guitar, keys, vocals), Juan Pieczanski (bass, guitar) and Jeff Curtin (drums, percussion), the band have moved way beyond the hazy home recorded sound of their previous releases toward a full-fledged, but still self-produced, clear approach. Where 2010’s New Chain was a lesson in maximalist pop, Limits of Desire finds the band trimming their sound to the essentials, yet hitting new and unexpected heights with the addition of live drums, electric guitar and trumpet to the existing Small Black palette.
Tonally the songs sweep and glide over lush keys, bolstered by lyrics that illustrate the semi-abstract moments of lost opportunities and misread signs, hinted at by the cover image. The title track whirls softly, and channels luminaries Tears for Fears and The Blue Nile, anchored by Pieczanski's punchy bass as Kolenik sings: "Other lives droned/ far from the grass where I lay/ each eye stared out the opposite way." As much as the record is about looking for deeper connections, it's also about avoiding real life, if only for a moment—getting out of your own head just long enough to calm down and find perspective.
“Free At Dawn” and “No Stranger” do what fans have come to love Small Black for, only better. They’re smart pop bangers tinged with a specific brand of melancholy that slowly build to night-affirming climaxes. While "Breathless” ups the tempo, over synth stabs, with lyrics that tackle apathy and uncertainty with catchy grace: "I'm standing in tomorrow's way/ future's fine/least it seems okay." It paints a concise portrait of a generation struggling with unlimited freedom and malaise.
The band builds on a rich history of synth pop by making a thoroughly modern album, on both the front and back end. One that seeks out cohesion, connection and calm in a world that won’t sit still. Limits of Desire doesn't attempt to provide any solutions, but coming to terms with not finding the answers feels infinitely more fruitful.
ERAAS
ERAAS is a tribal atmospheric quartet based in Brooklyn led by its two founding members Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz which arose from the ashes of New England-based project Apse in 2011, forming with the desire to create more ritualistic and darker themes. Live, the band, generally as a 4-piece, elicit foreboding, cautionary themes, mixing driving percussion, krautrock basslines tangled with hypnotic guitars and ethereal vocals.
Venue Information:
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St
Brooklyn, NY, 11211
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St
Brooklyn, NY, 11211
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/
