Description
‘Beehive Mind’ is an immediate, close-talking record. There’s a percussive, unshadowed insistence to it, a stirring march, an alertness, a mindfulness. Imagine the I-have-to-sing-this-song-or-I’ll-DIE urgency of Ron House singing “Negative Guest List” or that kind of unblinking attention of the first Go-Betweens singles maybe. It’s a record that does not leave any space for distraction. Until it does? There’s a tirelessness to the Spatulas, but there’s also a slow unraveling, a sense of constant movement that necessarily drifts out of persistence into a kind of soft-focus haze. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the Spatulas have rules for their songs, like some carefully planned Georges Perec style parameters. But I also am sure they’re steadily breaking rules too, and turning away from the decisions that 99 other songwriters would make. In either case, ‘Beehive Mind’ always validates my trust in them, in where they’ll take the song. Listening to it feels a lot like being carried, there’s care and closeness, but there’s also vulnerability.
Released 2024 by Post Present Medium. Limited to 500 copies.
