Veckatimest

Perhaps I'm a bit early on this one, but May 26th is going to be an important day for music this year.  About a week ago, Grizzly Bear announced and titled their highly anticipated follow up to 2006's Yellow House.  The new album will be called Veckatimest, named after an uninhabited island off the coast of Massachusetts.  Before I continue, I must say that I acknowledge the possibility that the new album could be ambitiously mediocre, or downright terrible making the author of this post out to be deeply mistaken.  That said, if any release this year is going to challenge Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion for album of the year it's going to be this one (granted the year is still very young).  Some of the new songs have been kicking around talk shows, radio programs, and live performances for some time now (over a year even) and they have been impressive to say the least.  The songs seem to have in no way compromised the artistic integrity of the band while at the same time, they seem to offer a more direct, accessible feel.  The anticipation for the album is going to (if it hasn't already) reach a fevered pitch by May.  This could be a big break through moment for the band.  As much as I love Merriweather, I'm going to be bold and say that Veckatimest is going to be even better.

As experimental rock albums go, Yellow House was brilliant, yet even after repeated listens, it demands a level of patience from its listeners that few are willing to give.  The aesthetic experiences here are reserved for those willing to put in the time.  I remember upon first listen appreciating the ambition from a distance.  What initially drew me into the album was actually the challenge rather than any immediate connection to the music.  After accepting the challenge, my ears slowly coaxed the album's humanity out from the layers of instruments, voices, and structural U-turns.  One's patience particularly pays off during those moments of direct and disarming beauty (on the fadeout in "Knife" for example - the vocals fade leaving only quiet percussion to decrescendo with plaintive piano chords).  Given the way the band plays with structure, these moments of direct beauty can catch you off guard at times.  The magnificent closer "Colorado" leaves us with the open ended, but perhaps slightly rhetorical question, "what now?"  This question is loaded with uncertainty and must inevitably be answered by the listener.  The obvious answer is, "I don't know."  What this answer means however will vary among listeners.  For some, the "I don't know" will express their inability to connect with the album, their unwillingness to be patient and with a shrug of the shoulders they will pass it by.  For others however, the "I don't know" will express a humble confession.  This confession is the beauty found in the uncertainty of an aesthetic experience.  This, "I don't know" is both devastating and liberating.  It is an end in itself.  The phrase is perhaps all we have to offer when trying to describe the sublime with words.  All great art has this respect for the uncertain in common.  It must be felt more than described.  

In a much less abstract sense however, Grizzly Bear is preparing to offer a different response to the question, "what now?"  The answer is, Veckatimest.