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)

Saturday, Jan 19th - Milwaukee WI - Mad Planet 8pm
Bon Iver
Collections of Colonies of Bees
Conrad Plymouth
There may be some Birds release celebration shenanigans afterwards… more on that soon.

Thursday, Feb 7th - Madison WI - UW memorial union (800 Langdon St) in the play circle theater 7:30pm
Bees will performing during, and after a screening of the 1968 Ira Cohen film Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda. Expect a very special, and one of a kind experience.

So there seemed to be some confusion over the release date for Birds. It turns out, Birds will be released January 22nd, of 2008.
Here it is folks, finished cover art and an audio preview of Flocks III off of our new album, Birds. It will be released January of 2008 by Table of the Elements / Radium records, and we could not be more excited about what we have recorded. Below the Cover and Audio clip are some very nice words about the album by Table of the Elements impresario Jeff Hunt.

In an era of pervasive lo-fi meandering and leaden, self-indulgent
navel-gazing, Collections of Colonies of Bees sweep in grandly, as
their name implies, in great, billowing swarms of sound, bourn aloft
on a thousand wings of miniscule, elegant detail. In these extended
instrumental tracks, guitars chime and soar, recalling the best
campaigns of the guitar armies of both Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham;
deft yet intensely focused percussion propels towards an inevitable
dawn; covering it all is a gossamer veil of subtly nuanced
electronica.

Birds is a joyous, expansive experience; crisp, clean, and clear;
dappled in sunshine; mottled with dew; epic minimalism in exquisite
registration. That’s saying something. In our present musical
climate of smoggy lassitude, Collections of Colonies of Bees are
diligently producing a sound that is dazzling – and as sweet as honey
taken straight from the comb. Dig in.

Thanks to everyone who made traveling to the East Coast an awesome time for the bees! It was fantastic beyond words to play with and meet Tony Conrad, Jonathan Kane, Paul Duncan, Mellisa St. Pierre and of course our great friends Megafaun. Please enjoy some pictures taken by Jim Schoenecker of our journey, and an audio collage of our experiences put together by Thomas Wincek that culminates in the Cambridge, MA performances of Mellisa St. Pierre and CoCoB. Have fun! We did.

Here we are with one of our musical heroes; Tony Conrad. Dan Spack is regrettably not pictured, as he was busy building something with his hands:

Jon died:

A man done up in urban war-paint on the subway, staring Jim down:

Megafaun + Bees - Jim + Pretty Lady + Bearded Man = Having fun downtown!:

Read it and weep, he totally did:

Ladies and gentlemen, Dan Spack:

And somehow, we remain among the living (except for Jon):

More pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jschoenecker/COCOBEastCoast2007 

DATE HAS CHANGED, ALL ELSE IS THE SAME. IT’S NOW SAT.
Please join us for a rare, intimate performance from North Carolina’s indescribable Megafaun, fresh from a U.S. tour with Akron/Family
+
Collections of Colonies of Bees performing a new piece: “Six guitars” (with a limited number of special, advance copies of our forthcoming release on Radium/Table of the Elements, ‘BIRDS’, and new *very* limited shirts available).

Saturday, October 27th
10pm

1028 South 5th Street, Milwaukee WI
Look for the sign on the door for specifics when you arrive.

B.Y.O.B.

More information:

MEGAFAUN:
www.myspace.com/megafaun
http://mhayhurst.blogspot.com/2007/06/megafaun.html

COLLECTIONS OF COLONIES OF BEES:
http://www.collectionsofcoloniesofbees.net
www.myspace.com/collectionsofcoloniesofbees

We have a brief East Coast stint coming up. Please come and check us out if you are in the area. We will have advance copies of the album for sale, along with EXTREMELY limited edition T-shirts.

Nov 3 + 4 Brooklyn, NY - Death By Audio 7pm
79 S. 2nd Street between Wythe + Kent
Collections of Colonies of Bees (Milw., WI)
Jonathan Kane’s February (New York, NY)
TK Webb & the Visions (Brooklyn, NY)
School of Seven Bells (Brooklyn, NY)
Paul Duncan Band (Brooklyn, NY)
Tony Conrad (Buffalo, NY)
Messages (Brooklyn, NY)
Megafaun (Raleigh, NC)
Jon Mueller (Milw., WI)
IUD (Brooklyn, NY)
+Special Guests

Nov 5 Cambridge, MA - Lily Pad 7pm
1353 Cambridge Street
Beautiful Weekend (Boston, MA)
Collections of Colonies of Bees
Melissa St. Pierre

Nov 6 Buffalo, NY - Soundlab
110 Pearl Street