I’m completely down for cat road trips. My ragdoll cat Chewbacca would completely dig them too! Listen to the song above for some inspiration for said trips.
After surprising fans last month with the release of “Intrusive Thoughts,” their first new music since 2019, post-punk electro band Bear Hands today announce the October 18 release of their new album, The Key to What via Rostrum Records/Cantora Records (the latter being newly reformed and the band’s longtime label). After moving to a tiny town on the Oregon coast in 2019, the band’s singer/songwriter Dylan Rau made an attempt to take a step back from music, spending his time “chopping some wood and learning how to use power tools.” But it turned out he was better at writing songs. New tracks were shaped remotely over the following few years between band members (bassist Val Loper and drummer TJ Orscher) on opposite coasts. The band eventually found themselves back together in Cherry Hill, NJ, with producer and touring guitarist Alex M before the finishing touches were put on by co-producers Elliott Kozel (Yves Tumor, SZA, Lizzo) and Caleb Wright (Samia, Charly Bliss). The result is an LP filled with the danceable beats and earworm hooks that Bear Hands is known for, exploring themes of survival, escapism, and, true to their style, finding humor even “when it hurts.”
Today, Bear Hands tease The Key to What with their anthemic new single “Floor It.” The song and video premiered via Flood Magazine and Bear Hands told them, “‘Floor It’ is the oldest song on our new record and almost appeared on our last record Fake Tunes but we didn’t finish it in time. Now it’s done and we like it so much we made it the first track on The Key to What. The hook is about taking road trips with our cat Billy. He would climb all over the interior and wedge himself in the weirdest places like under the brake pedal (not recommended). It’s one of two road songs on our new record so roll down the windows and turn it up real loud!” They continue “The video, lovingly handcrafted by noted auteur Orson Oblowitz, was shot on a grey morning in Los Angeles and plays on themes of isolation, drowning in paradise, and the impossibility of escape. It was really really cold shooting the beach stuff and I was cursing my past self for coming up with such a stupid idea. You can see me shivering in the video but after watching it back we felt like it worked.” Flood says, “The track is a buoyant synth-pop number full of sugary-sweet melodies and crunching drums that give the song a punch.”
2024 will also see Bear Hands make a return to life in a van as they hit the road for their “Distraction 10” tour (celebrating a decade since the release of their acclaimed sophomore album Distraction) The dates kick off on October 27 in Hartford, CT, and concluding in Seattle, WA, on November 17. The tour makes stops in Brooklyn, NY, for a show at Music Hall Of Williamsburg on November 1 and at the Teragram in Los Angeles, CA on November 12. All dates are listed below, and tickets are on-sale now.
Bear Hands’ fifth LP The Key to What ain’t no act of desperation! They didn’t have to make another record. You didn’t ask for one. However, after moving to a tiny town on the Oregon coast in 2019, singer/songwriter Dylan Rau didn’t have much else to do. He chopped some wood and learned how to use power tools, but these proved to be passing fancies, the adopted passions of a five-year LARP as a different person.
I don’t really know how to stop writing songs. Even if no one is listening or we have no team or infrastructure supporting us, I like to think we’d be like those graffiti artists who paint in the subway tunnels where no one will ever see it.
Narcotics Anonymous tells us, “To thine own self be true.” But they also tell you pure virginal abstinence is the only way to live. Neither of these dictums helped Rau find meaning or purpose during his extended exile in ruraldom. On the plus side, he wrote a couple of songs, some of which turned out pretty good, some tickling the underside of transcendence.
The record is mostly about trying to keep it together when it’s already fallen apart, learning skills that no longer have any applications today and true and total pointlessness. Kinda like singing into the void to see if we hear anything back, but your headphones no longer connect because the void updated it’s hardware and doesn’t have an aux jack anymore.
Fueled by generic pharmaceuticals and a persistent fear of irrelevance, the band (Rau, bassist Val Loper, and drummer TJ Orscher) convened at a small home studio in Cherry Hill, NJ, to do some real-life recording. New creative collaborator and touring guitarist Alex Marans produced the sessions, wrote some guitar leads, and prepared elaborate breakfast scrambles on most mornings. Everything was floated on the band’s long-suffering American Express Business card.
This album was a heavy ass lift and took forever to get done. Some of the songs are five years old and have changed a lot since inception. Being the only person on the West Coast meant we had to work through email or have intensive face-to-face sessions when I would go to Philly for a week or whatever. That kind of time sensitivity can make things kind of volatile emotionally.
In suburban South Jersey, songs like the euro-deranged “Intrusive Thoughts” and the imminently pre-viral “Mosquito Song” cozied up against highway anthems “Floor It” and “Car Wreck” (featuring guest vocals from lifelong friend and post-punk cult hero Dan Barrett of Have a Nice Life). A depressive episode was monetized in the three-minute epic “Dialtone.” The banality of modern life was trudged through in hyper-realistic electro slogs “Adderall / Ambien” and “Scam Likely.”
If you just get a little something done on most days, you’ll eventually reach the finish line. Maybe. Or at least we did.
Eventually employing the tremendous creative talents of super producer Elliott Kozel (Yves Tumor, SZA, Lizzo) to push the project well past the finish line, Bear Hands has created the finest record of their 15-year career. Scheduled for an October 18th, 2024 release through Rostrum Records and the newly reformed Cantora Records, ‘The Key to What’ is the album you didn’t know you needed from a band of barely survivors beating on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. They are also available as freelance bio writers.
