popwreckoning

When School of Seven Bells plays the RecordBar in Kansas City on Wednesday, Sept. 23, PopWreckoning wants you to be there. We’re hooking one lucky winner up with a pair of tickets to the show. So, let the dreamy, ethereal melodies of School of Seven Bells help get you past hump day.

To win, you must be 21+, able to go to the show and correctly answer the following questions by Sunday, September 20 at 5 p.m. CDT. Use your real/full name and a valid email address to enter.

1. What’s your favorite School of Seven Bells’ song and why?

2. What band were the School of Seven Bells’ members touring with when they all met?

M83‘s Morgan Kirby has announced her debut solo project, White Sea. White Sea’s first release will be the This Frontier EP due out digitally October 5.

“While on tour with M83, I was exposed to so many new things,” Kibby explains. “When I returned home, I sat down and taught myself Pro Tools, and how to produce. I’ve really spent the last year figuring out what music I’m excited about making.”

The 5-song indie pop release explores cinematic elements paired with big bass lines and synthesizer melodies with Kirby’s sweet voice adding a final texture.

Kibby also is set to release a remix of School of Seven Bells‘ “Dust Devil” on Sept. 14 with the release of her single, “Heart is Strange.”

Tour dates are in the works.

School of Seven Bells will release Disconnect from Desire on July 13. The dream-pop group will support the release with two shows at the Mercury Lounge on June 9 and June 10.

The three-piece band is composed of Benjamin Curtis (formerly of Secret Machines) and identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, (formerly of On!Air!Library!). Disconnect from Desire is their follow up to 2008′s Alpinisms.

Tour Dates (more to be announced):
June 9 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
June 10 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY

Bear In Heaven is an experimental indie-rock band from Brooklyn, New York whose latest album Beast Rest Forth Mouth was recently released to significant critical acclaim, even receiving Pitchfork’s much-coveted ‘Best New Music’ designation. After being personally blown away by the album, I rushed to get an interview with frontman Jon Philpot to find out how Bear In Heaven began and how it feels now to be in a rising indie band. The interview was conducted just a couple days after the Pitchfork review.

Marc Z Grub, PopWreckoning: So tell me about your week, Jon.
Jon Philpot, Bear In Heaven: My week? My week has been pretty crazy.Lots of interviews with web people and people from magazines and also lots of emails from people in Europe, which is cool.
MG: Was it like the Pitchfork review went up and suddenly the phone started ringing?
JP: Essentially, yes. I am as amazed as anybody about how incredibly powerful Pitchfork is. And I’m happy to have received the good side of it. It’s really cool. I never knew it existed like this.
MG: Yeah, this sort of ‘OMG, Pitchfork is so powerful!’ thing keeps coming up with bands I talk to. It’s pretty amazing. So, this [album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth] is your second album, right?
JP: This is our second full-length record and we also have an EP that I did on my own way back before any of the guys that are in the band were presently in the band. And there’s also a dance EP we made for this record out of [the song] “Wholehearted Mess.”

MG: So can you tell me how Bear In Heaven originated?
JP: It started basically with just me. I was making bedroom-style music but kind of pushing it a little as far as what I was trying to record. Then people kind of got excited about stuff that I was doing and then I got a record out – that little EP I was telling you about – called Tunes Nextdoor To Songs. And then the guys joined the band: the guys that are in the band presently. We lost two members – one is David Daniell, who’s actually gone on to a really successful solo experimental guitar kind of career. He moved to Chicago and started doing that. And then the other fellow is James Elliott and he played with School Of Seven Bells for a while. I think he actually recorded on their Alpinisms record and then he also has the really fruitful kind of awkward dance music project that he’s doing too [ed. Ateleia]. And then the four of us that are left just kind of kept going.

MG: And how did the four of you get together?
JP: [Keyboardist/Guitarist] Sadek (Bazarra) and I are friends from Atlanta. We actually dated the same girl, that’s how we know each other, oddly enough. Not at the same time though, at different times. [Guitarist] Adam (Wills) and I worked together at a studio, at this kind of video-making studio and then when I moved up to New York, he moved up kind of shortly after and we just maintained the friendship. And [drummer] Joe [Stickney] and Adam actually went to school together, so that’s how those two guys knew each other. And then we just kind of started playing altogether. Actually, we got a practice space and it was all the people that I told you about, minus Joe, and we were playing music without a drummer for like, a long while. And that was kind of weird but we were doing it, we were playing. And then Joe came in and we were like, “oh, now we’re a band.”

MG: Has having a full band changed the way that you write and changed the way that Bear In Heaven sounds?
JP: Yeah, it did, I mean it limited the palette in like a good way because before it was like you’re just making music and you think about, “oh, what sound could I put here” or, “what sound could I put there” and “do I know anybody who plays cello or harp or trumpet or something” and you just put all those people on the record because that’s what was going on. And your pallet is super wide or at least my pallet was super wide, you know, I knew all these people doing different stuff.

Now that we’re like a band and want to make music that reflects what we’re doing live, it’s limited the palette and made us sort of more cohesive I think. But we still have these weird elements of what I was doing in the past or something. Like when we started playing altogether, we were playing the songs I had recorded on my own. We were kind of trying to translate them in a weird way. We had synthesizers and samplers and we were trying to translate these weird very personal-time songs, none of the timing was in any kind of normal counts or anything like that. It was basically like a cluster fuck. But that, I think, that kind of helped us learn to do things more efficiently, but also kind of keeping some of the weird ridiculousness that I guess I was doing on my own. Basically, I didn’t really know what I was doing: just kind of experimenting.

MG: I was trying to think about how to describe your guys’ sounds in terms of influences or likenesses to other bands and I was having a really hard time doing it. Where would you say the Bear In Heaven-sound comes from?
JP: There are so many things that have shaped [the sound]. I guess Talk Talk was a really big influence at one point; those guys were making really cool music. I think everybody in the band would say something different though. I really like Jerry Butler. You know, it’s been funny reading people trying to figure out what we’re doing and we’re not trying to do a thing that sounds like something else, we’re just doing our thing. Does that make sense?
MG: It does, because you guys really do not sound like any one other band or thing in particular. I thought you guys definitely sounded very 2009, but I couldn’t point to any one band or movement in particular and say like, “They’re trying to do that.”
JP: Yeah, like it’s not because we don’t want to. I mean, like we know we sound like whatever else is going on, there is definitely that, [but] there’s not really a point in trying to be like another modern band necessarily. We’re just trying to do what we do naturally and [we’ve been] kind of way under the radar for a long time so we just kind of kept doing what we were doing. A lot of times we’ve failed. We’ve had a lot of failures and also some minor successes here and there and we’ve made friendships in the music community that we value. We’ve been around playing for about five years, but I don’t know. I heard one guy on Facebook or Twitter or something compared us to Moroder and Toto.
MG: Giorgio Moroder?
JP: Yeah. (Laughs)
MG: I guess that’s not a horrible comparison, but any band that I’d try to compare you to, it would be like, “not reeeeaaaallllyyyy.”
JP: Yeah, we come from such a wide background I guess. I mean all of us independently come from such a wide listening background, it’s stuff that it’s just gotten in our brains and we don’t even know what the hell it is anymore. There’s a lot of stuff that I really like, like you can definitely put Jerry Butler and Talk Talk down there, those guys are great. But if you talk to Adam he might tell you there’s some RnB thing that just hit him hard or something like that. Oh, and Prince. Prince is great.

MG: You all said you come from different background, what kind of background would you say you come from?
JP: Musically, uh– a late bloomer. I didn’t start playing music until late in the game, but when I did start playing I was really into minimalism and experimental music and that kind of stuff. Not necessarily like pop tunes, though strangely, the older I get the more I really like pop music and rock. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll still listen to some ‘out’ electronic shit and I think that that’s kind of where my heart will always be. I definitely have to say when I heard about Tony Conrad and that band AMM, I was like, “This is music?” I mean, it was confusing that that could actually be music.

MG: How old were you when you started playing music?
JP: I probably was 19, maybe.
MG: How old are you now?
JP: I’m old. It’s kind of funny. I’m 35.
MG: Oh wow, it took a long time to get to ‘Best New Music,’ but you got there.
JP: (Laughs) Yeah, yeah, I guess so. I mean I’ve been in other projects that have kind of just totally gone under the radar and weren’t even for this particular crowd at all.

MG: You said you guys had a lot of failures, could you tell me about maybe about a couple of your massive failures?
JP: Well, as far as live shows go, one of the bigger failures we had was when we headlined at The Knitting Factory. That was a terrible show. It was one of those shows that we were like, “Jesus Christ, are we gonna continue this?” But we pushed through, thankfully. We ended up having a good show a couple weeks after that. But that show in particular was terrible. It was the night of the Palin-Biden presidential debate and everybody’s eyes were glued on the television. Nobody came out to that show, maybe five people in total. It was a pretty rough experience. And then I guess, you know, not to put any hate on the last record we did (Red Bloom Of The Boom), but we were just making music that we kind of had to get it out, get it out of our system. These like long songs and they were not necessarily for everybody-
MG: Pitchfork still gave you a good review on that one though, they gave you like a 7.8, which is pretty legit.
JP: Yeah, yeah, no, we were really gracious that we got that. That actually helped too. But you know, that record was more of, like, we just had to get that record out of us. And it was good that we did. And it’s weird whenever I listen to it, there’s like so much space and we just were taking our time. But in this climate, it seems like the attention span just isn’t there on a record. All the songs that you hear on this record were at one point over seven minutes so we’ve cut it back and you know, we’re trying in a way to make it fun for us and fun for the audience. We’ve definitely learned a lot over the course of trying to make these songs the way that we want to make them and the way that we do make them.

MG: And how else is this album different from the last one?
JP: It’s just more ‘honed in’ on what it is we’re doing. I think we are actually ‘figuring it out.’ We’re figuring out our process; we’re figuring out our systems. We’re kind of a nerdy band a little bit, we’re kind of pecky, but it’s been kind of fun, it really has and it opens us up to doing different sounding stuff, I think. We want to make stuff that not just us would enjoy.

MG: So what’s next for Bear In Heaven? What are you guys feeling in terms of your next step?
JP: Music videos and then going on tour as much as we can. And between all that, just kind of get back to writing and stuff like that, which is cool. We’ve always had more songs written and recorded than are out so we finally caught up with ourselves. [We can finally] take the stuff – like a freakin’ hard-drive full of sketches – and be like “alright, those ten, make something.”

MG: Are you feeling like you’re going to be making any stylistic changes?
JP: I don’t know, we’ll just feel it out. We’ve not like had a plan like that ever, so we’ll keep hopefully just stumbling along. Maybe we’ll land on something good.

Bear In Heaven: website | myspace

The story behind the name of the band School of Seven Bells goes something like this: in 2004, Benjamin Curtis and twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza were on tour in previous (now defunct?) bands. Alejandra Deheza saw a show on public television about a mythical pickpocket academy called the “School of Seven Bells”, which supposedly operated on the premise that seven minds working together towards one goal could go on to do great things. Two years later, the band became known by the School of Seven Bells moniker and for their unique sound, mixing guitars, synths, and the sisters’ harmonizing vocals and creating swirly masterpieces. They stopped by Washington’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel Sunday night.

I can only presume the first act “playing” was the local electronica act Dub Pixel, because the woman behind the laptop and the man in the sound booth with the guitar (or was it a bass? I really couldn’t tell from a distance) never formally introduced themselves or the band itself. For about a half-hour, we were aurally and visually assaulted with a dramatic, cinematic soundscape, complete with a drony voiceover that sound like a whacked out psychologist. His intoning urged us to give ourselves over to the music and relax. I found this was impossible if you were truly paying attention to the video being shown on the stage-length screen, where freaky looking eyeballs, cutouts from silent movies, cities on fire, and the like flickered and morphed. As I looked around me, I couldn’t tell if the crowd was actually mesmerized by what they saw and heard or if they were staring at the screen, unsure on how to react because the music was too mellow and not beat-heavy enough to dance to. When their presentation was over, the “group” got a respectable round of applause.

Next up was Phantogram, a duo from Saratoga Springs, New York. I had checked the band out earlier on MySpace, and based on the few songs of theirs I heard, I decided that they’d be a good fit as an opener for the School of Seven Bells. I was right. Keyboardist/synth player Sarah Barthel and guitarist Josh Carter are the first duo I’ve seen in a long time that perform like one complete unit, not two disparate ones. Both sing: Barthel contributes mostly angelic vocals – think Enya but harder-edged, as in the band’s “When I’m Small” – whereas Carter’s voice is more sultry and at times humorous, at one point telling Washington to dance and “bounce!” The two of them throw their whole bodies into their performance too. If you can get past the guitar bits of “Mouthful of Diamonds” that sound awfully similar to those found in Modest Mouse’s “Float On”, it’s a well-crafted piece of electronic rock. In the currently crowded world of electronic music, I hope to hear songs by Barthel and Carter gracing a dance floor soon. Their debut album Eyelid Movies was released digitally in the UK earlier this month; one can hope for a stateside release soon.

And then it was time to hear the School of Seven Bells. The band performs under near to complete darkness, which must make Benjamin Curtis’s job very difficult, given the large number of pedals and effects in front of his feet the man has for his guitar, as well as the Mac book he’s got half-hidden in the back that no doubt holds secrets into the band’s sound. The Deheza sisters can’t be having it much easier, playing guitar and synths by feel and not by sight. The crowd swayed their bodies to the hypnotic rhythms and the Deheza sisters’ harmonious vocals. For me, the set highlight was “iamundernodisguise”, the song that introduced me to the band many moons ago, transporting me to a faraway, isolated Tibetan mountain peak, where the air is clear, the skies are blue, and all is well. I can report that their live performance set me off on a similar journey.

In addition to playing their well-known songs “Half Asleep” and “My Cabal” from their 2008 debut album Alpinisms, they also treated us to some new songs; I’m hoping we will get a new album from the band sooner than later so we can hear what else their School can “teach” us. My only complaint: the ethereal voices were at times too low in the mix and should have been upped to be better appreciated. Overall though, the band delivered a stellar set. If you like their sound, definitely check them out live.

Tour dates
Sept 28 – Local 506 / Chapel Hill, NC*
Sept 29 – Drunken Unicorn / Atlanta*
Oct 01 – Emo’s / Austin*
Oct 02 – Austin City Limits Festival / Austin
Oct 04 – Casbah / San Diego*
Oct 05 – Troubadour / Los Angeles*
Oct 06 – Slim’s / San Francisco*
Oct 08 – Doug Fir / Portland
Oct 09 – Biltmore Cabaret / Vancouver
Oct 10 – Neumo’s / Seattle
Oct 13 – 7th Street Entry / Minneapolis
Oct 14 – Empty Bottle / Chicago
Oct 15 – Lee’s Palace / Toronto
Oct 16 – Pearl Street Nightclub / Northampton, MA
Oct 17 – Paradise / Boston
Oct 23 – Webster Hall / New York City
* with Phantogram

School of Seven Bells: website | myspace
Phantogram: myspace
Dub Pixel: myspace

This Memorial Day Weekend (May 23-25, 2009) will again see Quincy, Washington’s beloved Sasquatch! Music Festival held at The Gorge. Tickets go on sale on Saturday, February 28th at 10AM (information below).

This year’s Sasquatch! line-up includes:
Jane’s Addiction (feat. all four original members), Kings of Leon, Nine Inch Nails, Ben Harper & Relentless7, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Erykah Badu, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective, Silversun Pickups, Bon Iver, Santogold, Of Montreal, Explosions In The Sky, DeVotchKa, Peter Bjorn & John, Gogol Bordello, M. Ward, The Avett Brothers, Doves, Calexico, Grizzly Bear, M83, Girl Talk, The Gaslight Anthem, The Walkmen, Chromeo (dj set), Deadmau5, Mugison, Sun Kil Moon, Airborne Toxic Event, Blitzen Trapper, Shearwater, BLK JKS, The Wrens, Tobacco, Monotonix, King Khan & The Shrines, St. Vincent, Passion Pit, John Vanderslice, Bishop Allen, Blind Pilot, AA Bondy, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Ra Ra Riot, The Dodos, Beach House, The Submarines, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, The Dutchess & The Duke, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, Dent May & His Magnificent Ukelele, Fences, School of Seven Bells, Death Vessel, Horse Feathers, Hockey, The Pica Beats, Loch Lomond & more to come!

The festival’s comedy line-up includes Zach Galifiankas, Demetri Martin, Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, Todd Barry, Jon Benjamin, God’s Pottery, People’s Republic of Komedy & more.

The festival, now in its eighth and most ambitious year yet, has evolved from a unique, homegrown & low key fest into a full blown three day extravaganza. A festival-goer’s dream, it comes complete with camp-outs, canyons, sunsets, three stages and new this year, an expanded comedy and dance music tent. The tent will feature performances from comedians throughout the day, and then come dusk, will spotlight electronic and dance music artists.

For the third year in a row, the Sasquatch! Music Festival teams up with Esurance and Sustainable Energy Partners to bring you a carbon neutral music festival. By increasing sustainable practices at the Gorge, including an expanded recycling program, eco-friendly signage, and energy efficient lighting (to name a few), we are able reduce our overall carbon footprint at the venue. The rest of the calculated carbon emissions – fuel consumption by all those who travel to the event and energy used during the festival – are then offset through investments in carbon reduction programs, such as methane capture projects in the Pacific Northwest.

Beginning February 28th (on sale weekend only):
A discounted 3 DAY FESTIVAL PASS is available for a very limited time / $154.50
Offer ends Sunday, March 1st at midnight.
Single tickets, per day / $56.50

Beginning March 2nd:
3 day pass / $199.50
Single tickets, per day / $66.50

Beginning May 11th:
3 day pass / $229.50
Single tickets, per day / $76.50

V.I.P. package tickets with special amenities also available.

Tickets go on sale Saturday February 28th at 10AM and can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com, sasquatchfestival.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, or charge by phone in Seattle (206) 628-0888, in Oregon (503) 224-4400, and in Eastern Washington (509) 735-0500

Camping is available for May 22, 23, 24, 25 and can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com. For more details, directions and further information on camping at The Gorge Amphitheatre go to sasquatchfestival.com.

Sasquatch! Music Festival: website

Partly because it’s that wonderful time of year, partly because the economy kind of sucks, partly because free stuff is awesome and partly (mostly) because we totes owe you for missing a couple Free Music Fridays, check out all the free ish and music we’ve got for you today!

Check out some great music and some great giveaways! To win anything listed below, leave a comment with your name, email and desired prize!!

School of Seven Bells

Sweet guitar riff + jagged beats + silky vocals + space age synthesizers = somehow cohesive and wildly infectious songs. School of Seven Bells is not to be missed. Don’t miss them by entering to win!

Giveaway: Alpinisms CD and Half Asleep 7″

“Connjur”

website | myspace

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Paper Route

Never has anything more creative or more beautiful resulted from a raging case of insomnia.

Giveaway: Are We All Forgotten EP on CD

“Empty House”

website | myspace

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Dungen

Blazing, raw guitar workouts have their own time and place, but now, so do stirringly orchestrated, jazz-cooled compositions with cinematic undertones. Confident melodies and arresting ambiance in tighter frameworks than on previous releases, Dungen’s 4 is an album to be heard. Enter now and hear it compliments PopWreckoning!

Giveaway: 4 on vinyl

“Satt Att Se”

website | myspace | 4 review

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O’Death

So we love O’Death. They’ve got a sound all their own: 1 part gypsy punk, 1 part hillbilly hoedown, all parts awesome. Even more awesome, we’ve got a ‘Make Your Own Ukulele’ kit with the body of the ukulele signed by the band. The most unique thing we’ve ever given away…and f’real yo, we want one for ourselves!

Giveaway: ‘Make your own Ukulele’ kit (body signed by entire band) and Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin on CD

“Lowtide”

website | myspace | Broken Hymns, Limbs and Skin review | @ johnny brenda’s

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Eulogies

Never mind the connotations their name derives. These guys are all about a tribute, or eulogy, for the living. Their sweetly bright melodies will have you re-thinking eulogies all together.

Giveaway: Tempted To Do Nothing VinylDisc (one side plays as CD, flip side is vinyl) — how cool is this?!

“Two Can Play” (featuring Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups):

website | myspace

To win anything listed above, leave a comment with your name, email and desired prize!!