Spirit Of The Beehive

In the organizer's words:

Since SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE released their self-titled debut album in 2014, they have earned the reputation of being your favorite band's favorite band. Their music is immersive, confrontational and makes the listener stop and wonder, "How do they do that?" Over the years, this perplexity has given SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE room to quietly but steadily work their way up, and with their latest album "Hypnic Jerks" from 2018, they are now on the verge of a breakthrough. On April 9th, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE will release their fourth album and debut on Saddle Creek: "ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH". The album heralds a new chapter for the band in more ways than one, as it is the first to be recorded by the new three-piece lineup and the first to be entirely self-recorded and self-produced. Guitarist/vocalist Zack Schwartz and bassist/vocalist Rivka Ravede are now joined by Corey Wichlin, a multi-instrumentalist who relocated from Chicago to the band's hometown of Philadelphia last year. In the spring of 2020, the trio began writing their new album remotely, sending files back and forth via email. "The process of making this album was basically the exact opposite of our experience making Hypnic Jerks," Schwartz explains. "We had to record that in seven days because that was the studio time we had, whereas ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH was created over a period of three, four months."

The abundance of time wasn't the only difference. Recording remotely gave the band an incentive to experiment with new possibilities for their sound, resulting in an album unlike anything SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE had previously released. After completing the recording and mixing of the album digitally, the band mastered it to tape, giving the collection a textured, dimensional quality. "We knew we wanted to use some new instrumental elements on this album," Wichlin says. "We're not going completely electronic," Schwartz adds, "but the guitar, bass and drums just kind of get monotone."

ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH begins with an acoustic storm, an abstract composition that segues into the lively highway meditation "ENTERTAINMENT". As a listening experience, the album is a persistent exercise in bait-and-switch tactics, which the band describes as a conscious effort to draw the listener deeper into their mysterious, artificial landscape.

Take "GIVE UP YOUR LIFE," a sprawling track that drops two semitones from start to finish - a cheeky mastering decision that would fool anyone trying to play along. "There are some bizarre moods on this album," Schwartz says as he reflects on the process of creating the single "IT MIGHT TAKE SOME TIME." "The song started out as a pretty standard rock song, but then we changed it a lot to make it sound more dissonant." "Now it sounds like drowning," Ravede adds.

Although ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH doesn't have a unifying theme, the band uses samples from old, obscure commercials throughout, many of which influenced the songwriting process rather than serving as mere appendages. Schwartz describes his songwriting process as a stream of consciousness, while Ravede emphasizes that she usually doesn't have a specific intention when writing vocal parts. "When I write, the narrative usually emerges after the song is finished. And even then, it depends on how the listener interprets the words," she reflects. Regardless of how dreamlike the lyrics of SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE may be, in ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH reality always comes to the fore. "THE SERVER IS IMMERSED" is perhaps the poppiest song on the album, but it is inspired by Schwartz's day job in the restaurant business. The lyrics describe the monotony of everyday life, hypnotizing the listener until all three band members begin to sing and free him from his spell.

If there's one song on ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH that best sums up what SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is all about, it's "THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN'T DO", a track that highlights the band's growth from its inception to the present day. The song teeters between sublimity and monstrosity, as Ravede's feathery voice is overlaid with Schwartz's strained howl, accompanied by harrowing live drums reminiscent of the band's raw beginnings. "This song takes some of the sonic aesthetics of SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE's old albums and combines those sounds with the electronic instruments we've been working with," says Wichlin. ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH is not a metamorphosis, but simply the latest iteration of a long-standing project. "There's a line in the Bee Gees documentary that I think applies to us. I paraphrase: 'We may not have always harmonized, but we've always stayed together,'" Ravede says. Schwartz interjects: "SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE: We're still here."