For the Munich band’s third LP, Stephanie Müller and Laura Theis continued the self-conscious incorporation of new elements into their sound, joining forces with longtime collaborator Klaus Erika Dietl, a video artist; Mucho Pitchu, who makes experimental music with clarinet and saxophone, and a modular synthesiser environment named “Aimée.”
This expanded version of beißpony came up with a perpetually changing collage, held together by field recordings of a beehive that Pitchu had wired for sound.
It doesn’t take long to perceive the droning of the bees. However, once the sparsely distributed lyrics mention them, their presence becomes impossible to relegate to the background. We recognise that the album’s title is metonymic.
The bees are part of the band.
“Curtains of Wax” begins with a figure from what sounds like a haunted saxophone floating over the hive’s noise before the insistent plunking of a pitch-shifted keyboard and a ramshackle staccato rhythm are added to the mix.
On “Spots, Spreads & Hot Petals”, the sound of the hive mounts to a crescendo that calls to mind a roaring fire.
The most accessible track is “Shall We Look At Flowers,” in which the otherwise sparse vocals are prominent.
A hive recording that sounds more like a weary engine and a pulsing one-note bass line provides the bed for a cheerfully cryptic spoken-word performance:
Bees are wasps
That have forgotten how to hunt.
The bees are us,
If we remember what it is we want:
To be a bee
To sleep more
The allegory is explicit.
On the one hand, The Small & The Many invites us to reflect on the existence of bees as a perfect trope for our collective striving.
On the other, bees are the plural subject that keeps on “speaking” regardless of what we do, immersing us in a sea of inscrutable meaning.
This apiary communication fascinates most when contrasted with fitful attempts at human expression—a few words here, some meandering piano there—along the margins of The Small & The Many.
As compelling as those moments are, we understand intuitively that its coherence depends on the hive.
“The bees are us / If we remember what it is we want” is a call to reconnect with a deeper subjectivity, one that dissolves the distinction between individual and collective aspiration.
From a musical standpoint, the most exciting quality of The Small & The Many is its inside-out approach to composition.
The structure that connects the album’s different elements takes the form of negative space, an absence we sense as we follow the meandering flow of each song.
The title track is a perfect example.
After starting with some ominous synthesiser notes amid a bed of roiling waves and crackling distortion, a chorus of pre-semantic hums and sighs is joined by the lead vocal: “I’m looking forward to meeting the bees.”
Midway into the song, everything shifts.
A rhythm section reminiscent of late-career Einstürzende Neubauten provides the foil for a more bluesy singing that channels a Sun Records rock vibe.
Later, the plucking of string notes recalls classical East Asian music as the vocalist chants, “Let the bees be well.”
Superficial disjunction gives way to an impression of underlying unity.
However, it’s a unity under threat.
The fate of the bees and the humans who secretly want to be like them is hanging in the balance.
If they go, so do we.
Although beißpony wishes to remind us of these dangers, they have made an excellent decision to prioritise aesthetics.
The Small & The Many is a beautiful reminder of the world we have to lose and the future we have to gain, if we could only learn to bee.
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Photograph courtesy of Ekō. Published under a Creative Commons license.
