How did you feel when you first heard Tame Impala? Pastiche-laden antipodeans with good UK PR, or visionary sonic troubadours, boldly flying the flag for harmonious plaid-layered retro chic? Or possibly neither, that was just me. Anyway the ethos was clear: clean up a 67-70 caucasian rock sound, and sell it from the south Pacific back to San Fran and the English suburbs. But the tunes!
Bear Feathers: Psyche UK
The tunes take everything past analysis, because you just have to hear ‘em. If you’d never heard "Strawberry Fields Forever," it doesn’t matter how many times I say you should because of how it makes you feel, until you do.
Worthing’s Bear Feathers however, having not little in common with both late-Beatles and Tame Impala (let alone superior countrymen Pond), have the tunes leaking from their grizzly pores.
"Kids Just Want To Fall In Love" helpfully upends its near-namesake Cyndi Lauper original, casting into relief the faux-integrity of millennial deep emotion, and juxtaposing that with the existential f***-tomorrow of Lauper’s hen night staple. It’s also prime-time catchy, if that’s your thing. "My Baby Too" is an early Depeche Mode/Fad Gadget style casio-banger along traditional 50s love-triangle themes, elements best held together in its fantastically lo-fi Prodigy-esque video.
While the UK writhes in post-Brexit turmoil, and the US grapples an insane future under president Trump, independent music is enjoying an upsurge.
While news reports of ISIS-style attacks seem to have dissipated, the West appears to have succumbed to the fear. Artists like Bear Feathers put their heads above the parapets at such times, and risk the slings and arrows.
Compilation
Aesthetic highlight of the EP is the "Thing One" compilation album highlight "In The Midnight Sun," its genuine aquatic Flaming Lips/Future Islands spatiality perfectly condensed into a magical Teenies Valentine’s evening on Jupiter. Bear Feathers hold a sonic universe in their own solitary grain of sand, and aren’t afraid to wrap you up inside it. Somewhere along a Perth shore, watching the waves, Kevin Parker is taking notes.
