she keeps bees

Okay lets cut to the chase here. I know its been out for ages – last July in fact – that’ll be July 2012 – its long since sold out of its limited 7 inch pressing – which I’ll be the first to admit has somewhat dampened my spirits I’m even more disconsolate in discovering it was pressed on coloured vinyl and features an absolutely drop dead gorgeous flip cover. More about that in a second. From She Keeps Bees who appear to be a duo Gasper Claus and Stephane Milosevic – this we believe to be their debut release entitled ‘counter charm’. now I’ll dare you to hear something as fine as this from now till the end of the year and beyond, this sits there with that amazing Devastations single from a few years ago and rushes to the senses like the early demo outings from the Smoke Fairies. Perfectly primed for the old school Mazzy Star / Delgados admirers among you, this beauty howls to a ghostly spectral psych blues matrix suffocated in passion and blooded in a macabre shadow lined dusting that could have fallen from a David Lynch score, sparsely magnetic and blessed with the most unreal sonic spell craft that you feel transfixed and frozen upon its glare. Remove all notions of this being a one trick pony turn for on the flip is a savagely hollowed cover of that perennial nugget ’blue moon’. always been something of a favourite in our gaff yet occasion upon occasion each new version I’ve stumbled upon always arrived lacking that vital x ingredient until now that is. I’d like to think that She Keep Bees’ version is closer in spirit to writers Rodgers and Hart’s original design, for this is last chance saloon stuff, the sorrow and end of the pier despair being mellowed by the distant sound of a lolloping motif all hushed sumptuously in ghostly sepia apparitions, utterly crushing and divine if you ask me. http://www.shekeepsbees.com/skb-007-7-record