SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
For the past decade, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE have honed an aesthetic like no other. They’ve chopped up samples, chewed them up, spit them back out again, baby birded it. Across four albums and a smattering of EPs, Zack Schwartz, Corey Wichlin, and Rivka Ravede have fully solidified their stance as some of rock’s weirdest and best deconstructionists. 2018’s Hypnic Jerk was a study in noise punk sampledelia. It was a breakthrough for the band. Frank Ocean became a fan, spinning “fell asleep with a vision,” on Blonded Radio. 2021’s ENTERTAINMENT DEATH, was nasty dream pop by way of K-Mart realism and hitting the channel search setting on an old TV set.

The goal in making YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING was to soften out some of the edges. “Less hard left turns,” says Wichlin. “We wanted to make something intentionally less antagonistic,” he jokes. In practice, this means the record has slightly fewer drastic arrangement changes, and it is more stripped down. Take “I’VE BEEN EVIL,” one of the newest songs on the record, as one such offering. It is straightforward in that its tempo is consistent, in that the song keeps us in the same place. It does not digress. It holds itself steady, with bleary-eyed guitars and hushed vocals. The song is weary, the song is a whisper. The utterance “I’ve been evil,” is like the shrug of a shoulder, a so what, ha ha.

YOU’LL HAVE TO LOSE SOMETHING is a record of provocations. It wants you to think it is just normal rock ‘n’ roll music. That it is purely pleasure oriented. But beneath these intentions is a collection of songs that are as complex as ever. The Ravede-led “FOUND A BODY,” is a downtempo smoke cloud of variegated synths. “Found a body,” she sings “No one can touch me.” “SUN SWEPT THE EVENING RED,” starts out disconcertingly chipper, before breaking down into an assault of sludged out guitars, auto-tuned vocals, a flurry of strings. Like all Spirit records, It is music made by three distinct voices, written independently and then assembled together. Despite being written all over the globe, with Ravede in Portugal and Schwartz and Wichlin back in Philadelphia, the trio arrived at the same themes: that of the brutality of coming to terms with reality, that of what it means to lie to protect yourself and your heart. Schwartz says he writes songs more less in a stream of consciousness. The band listens to very little outside music when working. The result is a record that very much is its own world. Where chaos is carefully organized, where being able to ever actually chill out is totally illusory, a trick mirror.

KASSIE KRUT
Taking inspiration from dub, noise, UK club music, and contemporary pop, Kassie Krut is a brand new project by Eve Alpert, Kasra Kurt (both Palm) and Matt Anderegg (Mothers, Body Meat).