Music Hall of Williamsburg upcoming shows
Cymbals Eat Guitars
Bear In Heaven / Oberhofer
- Venue:
-
Music Hall of Williamsburg
- Date:
- Fri 4/09
- Notes:
- 18+
- Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 9:00 PM
- $10 advance / $12 day of show
- Cymbals Eat Guitars
- myspace
- “We were at Barnes & Noble today and I was so excited to see Maximum Rock’n’Roll’s still publishing,” says Cymbals Eat Guitars bassist Neil Berenholz, his eyes widening at the very thought. “Joe was just like, ‘What’s that?’”
Welcome to one of the many contradictions that have shaped Cymbals since the spring of 2008. First, there’s that age thing, with 32-year-old Berenholz hailing from the golden age of bedroom recordings, screen-printed T-shirts and Kinko’d zines, and the rest of the group reared on genre-jumping iPods and Web sites that can propel or pulverize an artist’s entire career with a single review. As frontman Joseph D’Agostino—the band’s co-founder along with drummer Matthew Miller—is quick to admit, “I’ve been reading Pitchfork since I was in ninth grade.” Which was also when he discovered “Shady Lane” and started shedding the alt-rock influences that informed the cover songs he and Miller hammered out in high school.
The duo’s in college now, so it seems rather fitting that their full circle moment didn’t involve a capsule review in a print magazine; it happened when Pitchfork bestowed the band’s DIY debut, Why There Are Mountains, with a “Best New Music” stamp soon after its soft release. And we do mean soft. While many buzz-minded new artists dive straight into Brooklyn’s bustling music scene, Cymbals Eat Guitars were happy fine-tuning tracks from the outside, looking in—first in elaborate demos with the Wrens’ Charles Bissel (starting way back in the summer of 2007, before the group even had a name), and finally in a proper studio with Kyle “Slick” Johnson (Modest Mouse, The Hives). Like many other early fans, Johnson inadvertently discovered Cymbals Eat Guitars on New York’s Lower East Side circuit, playing the kind of early sets that come with being spread between Staten Island, Manhattan and Queens.
“We didn’t know anybody in the beginning,” says D’Agostino, “So it was hard to get any shows.”
“And since no one was pursuing us,” continues Berenholz, “We had to pursue opportunities ourselves.”
On a practical level, this has led the band to physically call the country’s most popular record shops and ask them to carry Mountains’ initial pressings. Lucky for them, the record sold itself, generating interest as far away as the UK’s influential Rough Trade shop and the NME, who wrote, "Why There Are Mountains may be one of the best 'indie' (the album is self-released, so, y'know, actually 'indie') albums of the year. And with the major label skyline being obliterated like something out of Independence Day, it's time to batten down the hatches."
Hype-raking reviews aside, there’s this important detail: Why There Are Mountains is a real album, a ‘grower’ that dishes out simple pleasures with every spin. Aside from obvious recurring elements (D’Agostino’s restless yelp and sinuous riffs, Miller’s Wire-y rhythms paired with Berenholz’s melodic bass style, and the orchestral layers of keyboard), there are shades of shoegaze (the patient, feedback-bathed passages of “Share”), Motown (the buoyant bass lines of “Cold Spring”), and Technicolor-tinged pop (the breezy horns and schizo synths of “Indiana”). Not to mention pure chaos, as explored in the gate-crashing “…And the Hazy Sea,” the tension-ratcheting “Like Blood Does,” and the final, throat-tearing moments of “Wind Phoenix (Proper Name).”
As for what’s next, well, one new song already has a “lazy guitar line” that’s indebted to indie pop, floating over a disco inspired rhythm section.
“You guys are laughing,” says Berenholz (and they are), “but that’s what I’m talking about here—people bringing different influences to the table, until my chocolate’s clearly in your peanut butter.”
“We aren’t shying away from the dance beats,” adds D’Agostino.
“Sometimes,” says Miller, smiling, “they are appropriate.”
- Bear In Heaven
- official website
- myspace
- Bear in Heaven have trapped echos, tremors, winds, and fading light. Theyve redefined time, and folded it. Theyve unbuttoned sound, and realigned it. Within four walls in Brooklyn, Jon Philpot, Adam Wills, Sadek Bazaara, and Joe Stickney mined the democracy of their collaboration, plus the endless hours of streamofconsciousness recorded documentation of rehearsals over the past years, to conceive the crystalline form of Beast Rest Forth Mouth, their second album, their exaltation.
A seed planted in the Southern US years ago (all members hail from Georgia or Alabama), Bear In Heaven began as the musical arm of Jon Philpot in 1998. Time eventually brought in a slew of players, like rickety scaffolding, that grew the sound and guided the group to morph from a 6to5to4piece. As a fourheaded organism, Bear In Heaven has now found a sonic stride unlike any in their history. Freely acknowledging the importance of the number four, the album Beast Rest Forth Mouth (think 'East West North South') was a conscious product of the four compass points, of the four makers, and of the inevitable confusion that manifests from that crossroad mentality: four directions could lead you anywhere and everywhere. Its the acknowledgement of what can go down at that convergence, at that dusty center, that drives Bear In Heaven and imbues the songs of Beast Rest Forth Mouth with something akin to both eternal peace and nervous urgency.
Preceding Beast Rest Forth Mouth is 2007s Red Bloom of the Boom, a 7track, 43minute exploration that crosses the streams of psychedelia and prog. Pitchfork called it 'a true cohesive work in an era when the albumasart form appears to be slowly dying' (7.8), and The Onion found it 'a powerful, functional mix of This Heat, 70s soft rock, early Genesis, and oddly, later Pink Floyd.' The album was further informed by a collection of remarkable music videos by the band and their collaborators, providing a mirror into both the creative scope of the Bear In Heaven consciousness, not to mention the day jobs they keep as editors, filmmakers, and designers. The packaging and visuals for Beast Rest Forth Mouth continue in this tradition, the band collaborating with artist Laura Brothers to create the tactile doorway into the sonic swirl of the album.
Feeding the Bear In Heaven process further is a collection of extracurricular activities. Jon Philpot recently collaborated with Roberto Lange on his Helado Negro project (Roberto also had a hand in the final mix of Beast Rest Forth Mouth), as well as performed live with neighbors and labelmates Stars Like Fleas. Adam Wills has played and toured with Jonathan Kanes February Rhys Chathams Guitar Trio, and started a new band with Joe Stickney called Dark Vibe. Joe Stickney was one of the drummers in the Boredomsled 88 Boadrum last summer. Jon, Sadek, and Adam were three of the two hundred guitarists in Rhys Chathams recent Crimson Grail performance at Lincoln Center.
Beast Rest Forth Mouth will first reveal itself through a limited 12' EP of the track 'Wholehearted Mess,' out September 8 on Hometapes. Bear In Heaven curated remixes from Pink Skull, Max Brannslokker, and Arclike, simultaneously creating a unique tributary off their own musical flow and a bona fide clubfriendly 12' pressed in multicolor vinyl. Tour dates across the east coast and the south will accompany the album release, adding yet another dimension to the prism of Bear In Heaven, built on sound and vision and everything in the inbetween.
OTHER UPCOMING SHOWS FROM THE BOWERY PRESENTS
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