Where You See a Wall, I See a Door
When the air gets cooler, and the leaves start to turn, and people constantly won’t shut up about that one Earth, Wind & Fire song because, why? It has a date in it? I mean it’s a great song, but they’re not engaging with it critically, or even beyond surface irony! Like, what?! Wait, what? What? Where am I? Oh yes, well, when the weather begins to transition and things start getting more pumpkin-y, I always turn to a select few albums to get me in the mood for the season: Sufjan Stevens’ Michigan, Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, and, of course, the subject of this rewind…
Time Is Over One Day Old
Bear in Heaven
Psychedelic Pop | 2014
Bear in Heaven, the musical project of singer/songwriter Jon Philpot and a rotating cast of keyboardists, bassists, drummers and guitarists, released their first EP, Tunes Nextdoor to Songs, in 2003, and they had a rough going for a while. Much of their sound was trying to recreate the darker psych-rock bands of the mid-late 60’s with the addition of some rather jarring, pre-Korg synth patches. This sound was honed and distilled over years until we would see it in its last unrefined form on their debut full-length album, Red Bloom of the Boom, in 2007. That album leaned much more heavily into rock and its stuttering, almost strobe-like synth effects left much to be desired.
But then, after approximately ten gajillion line up changes and a long writing period, they reemerged in 2009 with Beast Rest Forth Mouth, the fantasy album of the proto-hipster. It had it all: falsetto vocals about nothing in particular, dream-pop guitars and synths, an admittedly incredible drum section, some weird Animal Collective-type stuff, and the always unforgettably important album-finale-that’s-a-callback-to-one-of-the-other-songs-on-the-album. Pitchfork magazine fell over themselves to give it a “Best New Music” designation, as Bear in Heaven arrived on the burgeoning-yet-hyperpresent scene of lumbersexuals wearing Warby Parkers.
I jest. No seriously, none of that is meant to downplay or disparage Beast Rest Forth Mouth, because that album is legitimately brilliant. It’s just funny how it catapulted this band that no one would have paid attention to otherwise into semi-fame purely because of the aesthetics of the time. It’s also just an odd choice when you compare it to anything else they did before or since. BRFM is lighter and softer than their previous releases, and way more indie-rock sounding than anything after, so it’s strange to me that critics and crowds would latch onto the one album where the band were clearly in transition.
Moving on, the partial fame boost of BRFM gave them the budget to go full-on “synthpop: big production edition” for their next album, 2012’s I Love You, It’s Cool. A masterful command of synths and electronics of all sorts appears hear, cementing this sort of psych-inspired indie-pop as Bear in Heaven’s sound. Surely this album, promoted by the absolutely fantastic single “The Reflection of You,” would get them to arena status.
But no, the hipster revolution died as quickly as it had appeared, flailing under a million crashed fixies because, well, you remember, hipsters were insufferable. But what would happen to bands like Bear in Heaven, that through no fault of their own, got swept up in the tide? Well, the tide goes back out to sea. So, perhaps as a swansong of sorts, Bear in Heaven would record this one, final album, and leave the scene…forever.
That’s right, this is the last album they did, and it is so blindingly beautiful and filled with so much genuine emotion that the silence in the years since makes me sad. Time Is Over One Day Old is one of the truly spectacular albums of its day: ingenious songwriting, flawless production, meaningful and heartfelt lyricism, perfect performances. It is a travesty of music journalism that it still is essentially forgotten except by an incredibly dedicated few, those of us who stared at the sun and came away with better vision.
Autumn
Man, what a banger to start an album with. Did you know synth-indie-pop could head bang this hard? After the enchanting coos of synthetic birds fly off, MASSIVE drums kick in and this album’s signature bass-forward instrumentation rushes forward. Jon Philpot’s first, compressed verse is sung while all but the ever-present marching drums fade away, but as he enters the first chorus, his emission of “Autumn” is matched with a swelling return of the band, and a sumptuous multi-layer of vocals to back his own. It is awesome and beautiful, the chugging, ever-moving power of the music matching the power of the Earth, changing our surroundings into the most colorful and terrifying of seasons: this is beyond your control, so take solace and inspiration in its resplendence before all is ice and decay.
Time Between
Big, pushy drums are the first thing that we hear to start “Time Between” too, though the structure of the song is more towards Bear In Heaven’s indie rock roots than the constant out-of-body flow state of opener “Autumn.” The drums are perfectly mixed with subtle hand claps and foot stomps before a walloping synth bass line comes in while a distant shoegaze guitar gently hums a droning chord. The lyrics are of a subject that will remain constant throughout the album: somber allusions of betrayed trust, and our inability to change the past; “You told me lies / And I believed you / Held it in / And I believed you / Nothing to do.”
If I Were to Lie
A walking, practically strutting bass line opens “If I Were to Lie,” backed by a jazzy funk drum beat. Jon’s lyrics take an incredibly dark turn, as he confronts an extremely toxic partner mid-breakup: “I gave you everything / We lived a lot, we lived a lie / … / If I were to lie / I’d tell you how I’m feeling.” As the song comes towards its close, a hard clacking like firing electricity become more and more prominent, perfectly matching Jon’s delivery, “Pulse wave vibration or electron bomb / So long to the clash of my devotion.”
They Dream
“They Dream” is probably the closest that this album will get to recreating the sound from Beast Rest Forth Mouth: a wall of sound full of rising, crescendoing synth chords, tons of percussion sounds, and Jon’s high-pitched delivery. Though there’s a twist here; roughly halfway through this, the longest song on the album, the rocking drops out to leave a Vangelis-inspired soundscape as Jon retracts his previous statements and once again believes in the power of love: “Send away / Far away / Your belief / And trust your life to her.”
The Sun and The Moon and The Stars
This pleasant guitar and synth combo is Bear in Heaven’s best impression of a Tears for Fears ballad, and it’s a damn fine one. Or, maybe it’s a Cocteau Twins impression? Decide for yourself as you are immersed into some signature BiH psychedelia, where the lyrics are meant to convey a feeling more than a concrete message, while you listen in wonder to the various layers of 80’s synths popping in and out of the mix. It’s a wonderful respite before we enter one of the most heartbreaking songs in the band’s catalog, and the darker half of the album…
Memory Heart
The inventiveness of the band’s instrumentation and production choices here is stunning: the dream pop guitars and video-game synth lines bounce back and forth from left to right in the mix while colliding with each other in utterly mesmerizing patterns. When the chorus kicks in, a towering wall of synths pours in to fuzz out everything else. But that brilliance only serves as a counterpoint to some of the most devastating lyrics about time, regret, and isolation I’ve ever heard. “Come to me / Oh memory / You’re making me feel so alone,” Jon begins, begging his own memories to return, as they are all he has left, “Your firestorm / Your love parade / A little light in your black sea / … / Memory / You’re mean to me / the hole inside is getting bigger.”
Demon
A raspy drum machine rattles to life before Jon’s tale of trying to love a person who has lived a life of trauma begins. When the post-punk live drums kick in they’re accompanied by a dancing, bright synth pattern, and a subdued but unmistakable bass drive. He begins right way with the chorus, and this song’s thesis statement: “Take your hands from me / And your sympathy / Say you’re holding in / What your demon did.” The verses really emphasize the incredible drumming and Moroder-film-score electronic chord progression, while the choruses are punctuated by a wonderful, wordless choir of backing vocals, showcasing the human voice as an instrument. If there was one song to showcase what Bear in Heaven are capable of, this is it.
Way Off
A Eurythmics song written for a noir detective thriller is the backdrop for the album’s most narrative song. In the background, synths swirl and thrum, while in the foreground a bending, shifting line pumps straight out of your favorite tube-based synthesizer. It’s an incredibly busy sound, fitting perfectly with Jon’s story about growing up, moving into the city to make it big in music, and the immense struggle that doing so entails. “Now I’m deep / Years in the city / And I know how to try hard / And hate myself / … / And I know how to try hard / And go without / And to think way off / Somehow / My friends are still there.” It’s quite the tale of confusion: should he regret his decision when on one hand he could still be home, surrounded by friends, but on the other, his dreams of music would disappear. He closes with what sounds like his answer: “Diving headlong in the ocean wave / Floating free is your indemnity.”
Dissolve the Walls
Over morphed and detuned vocal samples, a choir of voices begins the mantra of this near-ambient soundscape: “Let the walls dissolve / ‘Til there’s no room at all.” Perhaps we should just follow the advice of Timothy Leary and tune in, drop out. Let the world melt away and our worries and fears leave us, even if just for a moment. The song adds subtle pings and groovy bass thumps to give the listener just enough texture to cling to, not get lost. It eventually crescendos until it explodes into a wall of noise, which then disappears to reveal a slight guitar, one of the few appearances of the instrument on the album that isn’t buried under a mountain of fuzz. It’s last echo stretches us into the finale…
You Don’t Need the World
One of my favorite closing tracks on any album ever is “You Don’t Need the World.” It is a warm hug when you’re in a bad way, inspiring when you’re down, and just the perfect turn toward a brighter future when everything looks bleak. Its message of fortitude in the face of… [shrugs at everything], may seem like it’s straight from an 80’s cat poster, but its delivery is inspired and so much more heartfelt than any ol’ sloganeering. “I don’t need the world, you don’t need the world,” Jon begins in a space devoid of other sounds—quite the juxtaposition from the previous song’s wall-of-sound. As he sings the first verse, that brilliant bass is back with a parallel guitar following its lines in tandem. When the second chorus comes in, a standard pattern, yet perfectly performed drum adds the beat in along with a faint droning synth. Each pass adds more instruments, particularly more guitars, which have been almost absent from the rest of this rock album (they’re there, but mixed way back, and, as previously stated, covered in effects). Here they are as naked as Jon’s emotions, an ingenious bit of songwriting. The second verse ends with what may be Bear in Heaven’s—and really, any band’s—most poignant and memorable line: “Trench your heart in deeply / The world is full of shit.” As everything comes to a maximalist conclusion, we can here Jon yell out, “Hold on tooth and nail / And never fall apart / The world could come between us / And never break your heart.”
And that’s it. That beautiful composition is what they left us with, Jon and company. It’s been ten years and Bear in Heaven haven’t released anything since—no singles, no remixes, and apart from the tour immediately promoting this album, no live performances. It’s as if they simply ceased to exist, leaving us this pure, crystalline artifact for us to admire in wonderment.
To say that when this album came out I was awestruck is a bit of an understatement. I had been following the band since their big hit in 2009, and after the fun yet a little to quirky for my taste electro of I Love You, It’s Cool, the depth—sonically and thematically—of Time Is Over One Day Old floored me. I listened to it over and over, mining it for every detail, and even now, writing this, I don’t think…no, I know I sill haven’t discovered everything. I will be listening to it again, at least once more, after I’m done here. The group’s absence from the scene is too much silence for me to withstand.
Other albums I’ve discussed on this platform were always those that were underreported, but never unappreciated. This one was, and I find, sadly still is, both. Upon release, Time Is Over One Day Old was given mediocre reviews and was predicted to be a sort of bridge for Bear in Heaven from one great project to another. But there wasn’t another, this is it. And that makes it doubly sad that people who just wanted BRFM 2 couldn’t give this the appropriate notice and comprehension.
I just wish there was more: more Bear in Heaven, more musical inquisitiveness, more…time.
P.S. Jon Philpot has since become a pretty in-demand movie and TV editor, a fact I did not know until researching this article. So, whatever film reel you’re splicing up, Jon, I wish the best for you.
…and maybe, just, like, one more album.
