Collections of Colonies of Bees
The Dim Suns (featuring members of Compound Red and Signaldrift)
The Celebrated Workingman

Cactus Club
2496 S Wentworth Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53207
10pm

It’s official!  The bees are going to Japan!  It looks like we’ll be hitting 5 cities on the great island of the east, and will be joined by the awesome Japanese band Toe for all of the dates.

Bees will be playing Friday, Dec. 19th at the Cactus Club.  Sleep Tight Co. will be opening.  We will also be doing an appearance beforehand on 88nine radio, on the show 414 with Scott Mullins.  We will be interviewed, and will play some little-heard songs as well.

So it’s been a while since we’ve posted any news here.  Don’t worry, we’re still very active, and have been recording and writing, and will start doing shows again starting December 19th. We’ll also be going to Japan in Febuary to tour behind the Japanese release of Birds. And in what we consider to be our most exciting development, the Bees and Justin Vernon (AKA Bon Iver) have been working hard to finish the album we started together over 3 years ago. Two weekends ago we finished up volcanoizing tracking at the newly established Vernon residence / studio in Fall Creek WI, and are now working feverishly to wrap up mixing. We are all EXTREMELY excited about how things are turning out, and Jagjaguwar records has graciously agreed to release the results. We have a couple of tentative names for the project and we will post those, along with some tantalizing previews in the next few days. In the meantime please enjoy these photos of the bro-down in action.

Hello! Please check out two videos for songs from the latest Collections of Colonies of Bees album Birds posted at Stereogum. The video for “Birds II” is by artist Michinori Saigo, and uses dripping pink paint, boxes, and cutout bird images to illustrate the song’s structure, while the video for “Birds III” by Arthur Ircink features extreme closeups of the band and their instruments and investigates “potential vs. kinetic energy”. Thanks!

Our newest record, Six Guitars is out today. Get it at your local music retailer! It’s pressed on beautiful clear vinyl, with an etched illustration by Savage Pencil. And we think the music is pretty good too! If you have the record, you may be interested in the online supplemental we’ve made, which has information on the construction of the piece, how it was performed, the score, and a video of an early live performance of the piece. Check it out here.

Bees will be doing a small midwestern tour with our good friend Justin Vernon. Here are the dates:

Tuesday, April 8th - St. Louis, MO - Biliken Club
Wednesday, April 9th - Urbana, IL - Canopy Club
Thursday, April 10th - Chicago, IL - Lakeshore Theater
Friday, April 11th - Madison, WI - Orpheum Theatre
Saturday, April 12th - St.Paul, MN - Turf Club

Here is a tour flyer:

Bees got a little mention in the NY Times Arts Beat blog. Check it out here.

“Collections of Colonies of Bees are precise instrumental math-rockers. They use odd meters and layer on stop-start riffs, with drums snickering in the spaces and then joining the thrust; then, when everyone was riffing together, new guitar lines sudden sprouted like tendrils. Everything was calibrated — the music was as much blueprinted as composed — but there was an edge to the neatness.”

Friday, Feb 15th - Milwaukee WI - Cactus Club 10pm
Collections of Colonies of Bees (Birds CD release)
Nineteen Thirteen
Hello Death Goodbye Killers

Sunday, March 2nd - Milwaukee WI - Mad Planet 10pm
w/ Neptune (Radium / Table of the Elements)

Thursday, March 13th - SXSW, Austin, TX - The Hideout - 617 Congress Ave
All Ages - 7:30pm
8:00 Carlos Villarreal
8:45 Jon Mueller
9:30 Melissa St. Pierre
10:00 Collections of Colonies of Bees
11:00 Megafaun
12:00 Northampton Wools (Thurston Moore and Bill Nace)
1:00 Neptune

Friday, March 21st - Chicago IL - AV Aerie
with Mystery Palace (Zod Records)

We thank everyone that’s enjoying and talking about the new album. Here are some selected quotes:

“a flight of airy resonances and Reichian flutters … a gorgeous … unfurling, that rolls up and down into a few anti-climaxes until its final triumphant climb
-Brandon Stosuy, Stereogum (01.14.08)

“They don’t need vocals or traditional song structures to make interesting, engaging and energetic music.
-Muzzle of Bees (01.12.08)

“The music, as grandiose and expansive as any take on indie’s vast pallate, is … another solid album in a long line of bands making pop feel epic once more.
-Electronic Voice Phenomenon (01.15.08)

“the first perfect sound of 2008.
-Collective Common (01.18.08)

“Evidence if it were needed of the power of music.
-Mp3 Hugger (01.16.08)

“majestic passages appear as if they were lifted from clouds, with guitars that swarm and proclamate, build, and explode monstrous holes in the dark with their light.
-Parasites & Sycophants (01.18.08)