Taking a cue from television, Podington Bear is once again fiddling with different notions of packaging music. The bear has emerged from hibernation with this bipolar cut:
Starting today, a new surprising season of Podington Bear begins. A new song will be posted every Friday, replacing the one for the week prior on the P Bear podcast.
If you caught anything of the Podington Bear story, you probably know that there’s some joker somewhere in Portland, Or. USA that made a bunch of instrumental tunes under a pseudonym and put them up on the internet for free, then archived it all in a box set, which HUSH is presently selling. Depending on how you roll, I guess, this is either mildy interesting, or a suspect ambition, or N/A. If you have a sensitive cute meter, the bear face drawing, songs with twinkle bell sounds and a blog with pictures of kittens may well send up red flags. Moreover, the sheer volume of music–One hundred and fifty or so songs in a player window, like tchochkes in a display case–will likely serve to reinforce a hunch about the music being applicable to your interest, N/A, or even an affront.
And so it goes in this information age where music saturation demands hair-trigger American Idol-esque parsing. If you spend a lot of time with and around music, it might increasingly feel like traffic court, which is to say, basically everyone is guilty and the clock is ticking, let’s keep moving so we can go home. Artists and bands who labor over making a case to be heard are afforded a few seconds from a judge (you and I and bloggers and the people compelled to make comments on the bloggers comments, etc.) and more often than not the instinct is, well you didn’t mean any harm, so I’ll reduce your fine. Now get out of my face. Bands are guilty of not trying enough or trying too hard. Guilty of making music that isn’t in league with the A list or aping the A list. Guilty of being preciously sincere or coy and artificial.
With this in mind I can’t say that I blame bands for dressing up in costume, having a shtick, trying to produce a “viral video”, or gaming myspace, or whatever.
All this is simply backstory for one aspect of why I chose to make music as a bear for 18 months. Yes, I am me. Podington Bear.
The larger part of the impetus to be a bear is refreshingly unadulterated. Making music is my personal therapy. It’s something that I can do to get into a really satisfying zone: to feel alive, happy, lose track of time, to feel challenged and creative and delighted. The anonymity part was an emboldening forcefield for that creative state. If you can get past the wrapper — the bear face and the 3 songs a week thing — maybe you’ll hear it?
Sincerely, Chad Crouch July 2, 08
About: Chad Crouch founded the HUSH records label in 1998 and has directed it since. His previous recordings include four albums with his band Blanket Music (2000-2007), one album under his given name (1997), and one EP under the name Toothfairy (2006). HUSH will be celebrating its 10th anniversary at The Aladdin Theatre in Portland with Laura Gibson, Loch Lomond, and Nick Jaina on July 12.
We are pleased to offer up some totally FREE musical gifts to you today from Podington Bear. The Lost Album collects the last 11 original songs posted in the run up to number 156 in the P Bear Podcast, whereas Remixes Vol 1 collects the remixes peppered throughout the year. The Box Set, also available in the shop as 10 CD set or download, collects the rest of P Bear’s considerable catalog.
Just click on over to the shop to download these pups.
A couple of teaser mixes to give you the feel: The Lost Album & Remixes Vol 1.
The Lost Album
1. Sparkletone
2. Janky Cluster
3. Nature Kid
4. Robin’s Egg Blue
5. Simple To Operate
6. Drama Queen
7. Misfit Toys
8. Hook Line & Slinker
9. Proof
10. Invisible Is Not Invincible
11. Graduation
Remixes Vol I
1. I Believe In You (YACHT)
2. Father Of Failure (Horse Feathers)
3. Au Naturale (Radiohead)
4. Shake Shugaree (Laura Gibson)
5. Val K (Graves)
6. Radio Campaign (M Ward)
7. No Where (Graves)
8. Dumb Luck (Dntel)
9. Sweet Deception (Laura Gibson)
10. Perfect For Light (Bobby Birdman)
Podington Bear is the pen name of an anonymous musician who embarked on an ambitious music marathon at the beginning of 2007: to write, record, and release three songs a week. Up until mid October of last year he stayed true to that goal with song releases (via podcast) that “you could set your watch to”. Then something happened. Songs trickled out, where they had once gushed. Secretly, P Bear (as he is oft called) began work on the penultimate album which would complete the collection (10 CDs assembled in a box set) that he began creating at the beginning of that year. You might be inclined to think this prodigous output –some 156 songs) would make for some watered down, uninspired work, but to the contrary:
“Podington Bear may be heavily indebted to the Aphex Twins and Brian Enos of the world, but he or she shares their ability to inject heart into a genre that can be icy and clinical by nature.” – – Stephen Thompson, NPR Song of The Day
“I’m sure many of you will dismiss this as overly cutesy or twee before you hear a note. But if you give it a listen I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” -Gorilla Vs. Bear
We are pleased to be teamed up with P Bear and his micro-label Poly Free to release The End and The Box Set to finer retail establishments on June 24th. Til Then here’s the shortest track, “Ebullience” to whet your appetite. A nice summer jam.
Listen to way more at podingtonbear.com