The
Bear Quartet - Ny
Våg
Now
seems like a good time to let The Bear Quartet really mess with
your heads, and the overcast ‘Ny Våg’ is the
biggest mindfuck of the band’s career. Well, so far. ‘Ny
Våg’ was released in 2002, a bleak, regressive exorcism
of an album…”the black sheep” of the BQ canon,
as fellow fan/music writer Josh Boone so perfectly put it. An
album of spiteful popsongs, distortion-swaddled rock, drizzling
guitar-hymnals, padded with instrumental, experimental, ambient
passages. Equally threatening and beseeching, there are definitely
more questions here than answers. Why is it essential? BECAUSE
IT'S THE BEAR QUARTET! Maybe this is a blurry snapshot of what
it was like to be The Bear Quartet that year. Maybe that long
Artic winter brought them to their artistic knees. And maybe
that year Mattias and Peter suffered from a case of lyricist-block,
strange from two of the most gifted wordsmiths around. Maybe
you need this beleaguered, monochromatic, slice of life to appreciate
what’s come before and what’s coming up from this
amazing band. Essential because there is of course a stricken
beauty here, if you’re up to the challenge. From their
bio: “In March 2002 the band released the full on nihilistic
album which is Ny Våg. It’s a hardrocking, teethgrinding
monster of an album. In fact, it’s the bee’s knees.
From classic punk (Euthanasia, Number) via noisy improvised instrumentals
(Go To Bed, Head, 10.20 100), to ambient pieces (Night Nurse,
Heaven/ No Heaven) it is unlike any album prior known to man.
But fans of the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Brian
Eno and Black Flag will not be disappointed. Because, odd as
it may seem, all the songs featured here on are prime examples
of classic BQ song writing. The lyrics may occasionally be in
Swedish and the overall mood is darker but the record possesses
all the elements that we have come to love and expect from this
genius lot.”
View
more Bear Quartet releases...
|
|
| |
| |
| THIS
WEEK'S TOP TEN |
01 Dream Magazine -- #8(more)
02 Mojo -- #177 (August 2008) [Magazine + CD](more)
03 Beaujolais -- Love At Thirty (ON SALE / PRE-ORDER: SALEABLE JULY 15TH)(more)
04 Steve Pride & His Blood Kin -- Pride On Pride(more)
05 Clark, Gene -- Collector's Series: Early L.A. Sessions(more)
06 This Is Ivy League -- This Is Ivy League(more)
07 Steve Pride -- Haint(more)
08 Tallest Man On Earth, The -- Shallow Grave (PRE-ORDER: DELAYED, SALEABLE JULY 2008)(more)
09 Folksongs For The Afterlife -- Put Danger Back In Your Life(more)
10 Fleet Foxes -- S-T(more)
|
|
|
