Send "Bear in Heaven " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Of all the bajillions of post-Animal Collective Brooklyn synth-rock bands, Bear in Heaven are maybe the simplest, the most economical. Like all the other bands in that scene, they traffic in hazy, faraway memories and languid longing. Unlike all those other bands, they do it in as few notes as possible, getting in and getting out, leaving you with their basslines reverberating around in your head. Melodically, they keep things as direct as possible: big choruses, propulsive beats, very few wasted moments. In a way, they belong to this whole zoned-out landscape the same way the Cars were a new-wave band. They're classic-pop types happy to dress their shameless, timeless hooks up in the flavor of the day. And in a lot of ways, that makes them ideal remix material.At this point, we almost don't have to mention how ridiculous it is for these indie rock remix albums to exist. When you round up 10 remixers to play around with one band's output, you're putting together a full-length that, by nature, is going to lack a sense of flow or cohesion. And when you insist that these remixers take on every song on the original album, you're further ensuring a mediocre product. Not every song on Bear in Heaven's great 2009 album Beast Rest Forth Mouth, after all, is on that "Lovesick Teenagers" level; virtually every album ever made has a filler track or five. The best we can hope for from these records is a reasonable, well-curated dance-music compilation with a few unifying threads, and that's basically what we have here. This particular remix album can claim better existence-justification than most, since it's being sold as a bonus disc on a Beast Rest Forth Mouth reissue rather than as a standalone. It's also a curious little artifact: The rare remix album where the net result is, by and large, less dancefloor-ready than the original album being remixed. Beast Rest isn't exactly a dance album, but it does boast some big, physical grooves; the band has enough disco pedigree that its been covering Lindstrøm and Christabelle's "Lovesick" live lately. But on this remix album, they've recruited a roster of remixers who don't seem particularly interested in housing these tracks up much. Arty club types like the Field and the Hundred in the Hands do show up, but they share equal time with leftfield picks like diffuse exoticists High Places and space-metal mind-expander Justin K. Broadrick. So while it's as spotty as any other remix record, it's at least spotty in interesting ways...full text |
| Bbc |
| Bear in Heaven's last album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, their second, seemed ripe for the remix treatment from the off. It's become a common technique for garnering interest from fresh audiences: for example, daunting noise band HEALTH altered perceptions of their music considerably with their two remix LPs to date. While this affair is no grand reinvention on that scale, with the original essence sustained through respect of the source material, it is just as absorbing. A few stand-outs seal the inseparable DNA of the respective remixer within them. Justin K Broderick's serene doom-scaling in the innocuous Dust Cloud is inspired and reminiscent of a light-hearted version of his dense, guitar-laden project Jesu. The Field's trance-drone vision of Ultimate Satisfaction is reliably brittle and lengthy compared to the brief, fierce shoving of the original. Twin Shadow's mix of Lovesick Teenagers snares the chorus and channels it into anchored grooves. Excellent touches like the cave echo and Steve Reich-esque bell tones on Pink Skull's Wholehearted Mess segues into the shimmering, minimal vocal rave of Fake Out tackled by BRAHMS. There are irresistible moments of deft blueprint-defying which only give greater emphasis to the sadly undervalued charms of its big brother. You Do You is the track closest to its original form and loses none of its ominous power, but is somehow lifted to a euphoric penultimate number, the opposite of its role on Beast Rest Forth Mouth. However, comparing individual tracks to their originals is probably not the point here, as fun as it is. The tracklisting has been significantly shuffled so as to retain the all important flow of an album as opposed to merely presenting a mirrored set of alternative visions. Significantly, the feel is to really craft an electronic tribute as prominent hooks are often softened or discarded in favour of throbbing, hypnotic rhythms. This isn't a far cry from what Bear in Heaven achieve with their limited set-up. It has just been indulged further and deeper by those adept at spreading singular ideas across a riskier length of time. All it needs is that time to dispel the initial reaction of precious protection over the first, and therefore defining, work, which it ultimately does admirably....full text |
| Drownedinsound |
| Taking a well-deserved victory lap after conquering both sides of the Atlantic with their second full-length album, Bear In Heaven lend out the keys to Daddy’s sportscar for a followup of remixes, plainly titled Beast Rest Forth Mouth Remixed. It’s always a leap of faith to hand over your creation to the care of other artists, but the impact of the original was sufficient to ensure that the Brooklyn-based synth trio had their pick of the litter. Among the selections are Swedish techno celeb The Field, Justin K. Broadrick of the dense and sometimes difficult shoecore outfit Jesu, yet another Swedish act, Studio, along with a handful of some of the buzziest bands the States has to offer. Not bad company for a band whose interviews sometimes read like the internal monologue of a rock‘n’roll Harvey Pekar. As bandmember Adam Wills reports, '….there are a lot of panic attacks. We aren’t 21- we have lives, wives, apartments to pay for…' Wills can rest easy on this one, as ten artists in ten tracks take Beast Rest Forth Mouth for a spin, and return it before midnight without a scratch. Home is where the heart is - sure enough, Bear In Heaven spotted some of the choicest tracks to their fellow Yanks. ‘Wholehearted Mess’, ‘Lovesick Teenagers’, and ‘Fake Out' went to Philadelphia’s Pink Skull, Brooklyn’s Twin Shadow and BRAHMS, respectively (Sweden’s Studio did manage to score the über-cool ‘You Do You’ while The Field take 'Ultimate Satisfaction’). The most memorable tracks, however, don’t always make for the most awe-inspiring remixes. If it’s not broke, why would you fix it? Twin Shadow mostly doesn’t, simply repeating the most enervating lyric in the song (“lovesick teenagers don’t ever die/they will live forever…") and minimally juicing out the structure with a few standard techno devices: the 'fade', the 'build', the 'extended percussion', etc. On the other hand, BRAHMS goes to town on ‘Fake Out’, transforming the somewhat slow and sludgy original into a uptempo dance number. One surprise of the album is the Deru remix of ‘Deafening Love’ that managed to amp up the original, which was already oozing with dark arts ambiance. Perry Farrell-style mantric crooning, chanting, and relentless marchstep percussion over siren-song synths: where do you go from there? Deru gets post-apocalyptic with drawn out chainsaw style effects and vocals that double, triple, quadruple the choral intensity of the original. When you start with a good album, the urge to remix is most responsibly met with the question: why? But when you’ve got a great album, the response changes to: why not? There’s nothing that the remixers could have done with their assignments to discredit Beast Rest Forth Mouth. As it stands, the artists managed to soup up and extend the highest highs without becoming trite. A remix album will never be as good as the original, but when the quality is this good you take what you can get....full text |
| Elbo |
| Long before Josh Tillman began playing drums for Fleet Foxes in 2008, he was penning intimately stark portraits of his own as a well-enmeshed member of the Seattle folk scene. His six previous records for Keep, Yer Bird, Fargo, and Western Vinyl have cultivated a small but devoted following, and while the Foxes gig couldn't have hurt his name recognition, Tillman still operates somewhat on the periphery of the industry, embedding his work with a literary touch that is simply less accessible than the more populist folk sound and lyrics of his peers. Closer to Mark Kozelek or...full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| Singing Ax adds a seventh volume to the burgeoning canon of sparse, lo-fi solo recordings from Fleet Foxes drummer J. Tillman. Intimate and somber, it omits even the modest accompaniment (harmonica, banjo, dulcimer) employed on previous albums like Cancer and Delirium and Year in the Kingdom. With hushed vocals, acoustic guitar and a few scattered ambient sounds, there’s little variety beyond the up-tempo “Tillman’s Rag,” which comes across like a peppy Nick Drake cut. But Tillman’s storytelling chops add weight. The pastoral imagery of “One Task” is especially haunting: “I had one task / In our home / I had to drag a horse to the field with my father’s gun.” His prolific output has rendered him a masterful lyricist, but Singing Ax doesn’t add much more to his catalog—it’s just another well-wrought notch in a wonderfully scuffed belt....full text |
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