Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival

Once the solo brainchild (circa 1998) of Atlanta-native Jon Philpot with a debut EP "Tunes Nextdoor to Songs" on Eastern Developments, Bear In Heaven has spent the last four years expanding into a full-fledged band. Now comprised of Philpot (Presocratics, Savath and Savalas, and, interestingly, editor of Wonder Showzen), Adam Wills (Rhys Chatham's Essentialist and Guitar Trio, Jonanthan Kane's February, and Paul Duncan), Joe Stickney (also of Rhys Chatham's Essentialist, Paul Duncan, as well as part time tour duty with Panthers), and Sadek Bazarra (designer with the venerable Graphic Havoc Visual Agency), Bear In Heaven has taken on the magic of many hands, not to mention a (super)group of longtime friends.

“Red Bloom of the Boom” marks the in-between moment of Jon Philpot's solo explosion becoming a full band's orchestra of sound. "We started clean and natural and as time passed we twisted, distorted and tweaked. After all that we're as handsome as ever," says Philpot, in a simple-yet-accurate explanation of the monster of a band that Bear In Heaven, unassumingly walking the streets of Brooklyn, has so suddenly, but deliberately, become.

The music: Philpot's voice is daydream-and-goosebump-inducing. It glides over walls of melodious distortion, building songs that are unapologetically epic. It is pleasure protracted, climaxes flashing well into songs that are complete sonic sentences. It testifies to psychedelic roots, to the music that we obsessed over in the 90s, and to absolute "future rock." Bear In Heaven is indeed deserving of a new descriptor.

The album is a timeline, according to Philpot, as well as an exercise in collaboration: "The group's core formed after a version of 'Shining and Free' was recorded. Our pal Gerry Fuchs (Turing Machine, !!!, Maserati) played drums on that song. Once Joe [Stickney, drummer] was onboard we went ahead with the others...We did 'Werewolf' and 'Slow Gold' at Sean Maffuci's studio. We we're able use his MU-tron, old pre-amps, tape echo and zero gravity chamber...There are guest singers...Alley [Alejandra Deheza of School of Seven Bells], Paul Duncan, Eva [Eva Puyelo Muns of Savath & Savalas]: amazing folks." Intra-band admiration continues with guitarist Adam Wills commenting that once-solo Philpot "brought a lot to the table as far as being able to let his own material go, to adapt it/edit it/change it/delete it/re-write over the course of a year in order to make it perfect."