metric reflection

Headphone Music, Part 1: Grizzly Bear

Knowing I was going to be sitting enthralled by the new Grizzly Bear tonight, I instinctively donned my Sennheisers tonight as soon as I got home, like a VR helmet in some early 90s utopian view of the future. There’s something about music like Grizzly Bear that is difficult to reproduce on regular speakers, even good ones – and I have decent ones – that is endemic to even mid-range speakers. It’s a magic, perhaps; by isolating yourself to the music, you allow it to transport you to a new realm. It’s no longer a background, even if it is just background: it still finds a way to burrow into your conscious thought. A lot of music is better served in this environment, so why not celebrate it? I think I’ll make this a semi-regular series.

Ok, back to Grizzly Bear. Each of the songs on Veckatimest feels like it was lovingly cared for, a sculpture rubbed and polished to perfection. None of the songs follow traditional structures. Instead, they meander through forests of sounds with a carefully tuned microphone listening for the distant falling spring water and the whippoorwills’ calls. In this song, a steady, plodding, no, impatiently waiting beat provides some continuity while the melody builds itself up. And then a grand finale as radiant as a smog-drenched sunset, harmonies washing over the stumbling guitar in violets and oranges.

I haven’t spent much time with it, but so far, this is turning out to be my favorite album of this first half a year.

Grizzly Bear – While You Wait for the Others

(A time when Lala failed..)