Original photo by Ed Luna, edited by Katie Pierce
What do you get in an age of illegal downloading, stream rips, and a struggling music industry? A beautiful, clever, entertaining, iron-clad album tease.
Bear in Heaven has released an early, slow, and steady stream of their new record, I Love You, It’s Cool. Catch is, it’s slowed to 400,000% below it’s normal speed. Leave it to these three to come up with something as genius as that.
Read jackinthepocket.com’s interview with Bear in Heaven from last year. I consider it one of my favorite interviews to date.
From left to right: Adam Wills, Joseph Stickney, Producer David Wrench, and Jon Philpot.
Photo by Shawn Brackbill
Bear in Heaven’s official statement from their website…
As a band, we have always sought to balance our interest in art and outsider music with a sense of humor about our place within the entertainment industry. When we began discussing the making of our third record 2 recurrent themes emerged:
1. the desire to release a companion piece of music that was more abstract and drone based than the material we had played every night for the last 18 months or will likely play for 18 months straight following the release of this record.
2. an equal desire to have a little lighthearted fun & comment on the current state of album promotion, hype cycles, countdowns and all the marketing ploys that we accept as a reality of existing within an internet age.
At some point these two ideas merged into one. We would stream our album earlier and for longer than anyone else had before but we’d stream it once. We’d stretch it far beyond the limits of being recognizable as pop music. Draw it out so that snare roll lasts for days. Invite listeners to interpret & consider each sound. sit back and breathe.