Rocks, sands, seas, trees & Forest Bees
Forest Bees’ Sheetal Singh; photographed by Colleen Phan-Eversman.
Forest Bees debuted comfort and commiseration for the world in the initial wake of the global pandemic with the self-titled and recently Bay Area multi-hyphenate Sheetal Singh delivered the meditations and musings on culture and identity with Between the Lines: Stories and Sounds of a South Asian American Life. Featuring production by Maryam Qudus of Spacemoth, the new record is a magnificently transcendent pop cycle of narratives penned by Singh that ponders modern life experiences, conflicting connections and amplifying unsung narratives and heroines.
The Bay Area artist-author and former member of The Stratford 4 moves between the macro and micro lenses, from the tense pensive rhythmic thought trails of quandaries on “At My Sphere”, to the heartbreak balladry and tragic beauty of “Someone Else”, and into the throes of inner racial conflicts on the electric psychotropic trip of “Absolution”. Love stories clash in conflicts and complications on the night driving "Wolf in the Fable", spelunking deep into the electro ether of "Draw Me In", to the fantastic voyages of learned wisdom and more on "Some Clichés Are True", mulling through the melting pot of "America" in pursuit of truths and meanings through contemporary opaque echo chambers. The title track delves into the emotions and entanglements that lay beneath the surface, swimming in the somber azure Bay waters of "All Blues", as "All That Damage" transcends the trauma and noise and ascends toward an expansive level of greater consciousness.
Forest Bees’ latest album is a concept record that offers the listening audience a privy view into the subtexts of nuances and idiosyncrasies in interpersonal trajectories, from the cultural complications to sweeping poetic missives on the human condition, the dimensions of desire, self image and so much more. Singh’s stream of conscious vocal delivery sails like a mystic voyager in a record that revels and rolls like a modern, mysterious and moody Bollywood odyssey blended with a sweeping western contemporary psych pop maximalism. Beyond Between the Lines, Sheetal shared the following collection of classic and new items of intrigue and interest with Week in Pop — featured just after the jump:
Collections of interest by Sheetal Singh of Forest Bees
The worlds of Forest Bees; press photo courtesy of Sheetal Singh.
The paintings of Salmon Toor
Salmon Toor is a queer Pakistani painter who I discovered via an art curator friend. I don’t know much about the visual arts, but I think he does amazing things with the color green.
Duran Duran, “The Seventh Stranger”
Duran Duran was my first musical obsession. Most people remember them for the poppier sounds of Rio, but the melancholy Seven and the Ragged Tiger still pulls on my heartstrings.
“Kabhi Kabhie Mere Dil Mein”
Bollywood was the soundtrack of my childhood. So many of the movies were about sacrifice, giving up love to fulfill duties or expectations of family, etc. My parents had an arranged marriage and were very unhappy, and my mother would spend hours singing along to her favorite soundtracks. In my young mind, my mother’s story and the sad Bollywood tales meshed together into a beautiful tragedy.
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
The debut novel from poet Ocean Vuong is sustainedly gorgeous. It tells the story of his boyhood and young adulthood, in a series of letters to his Vietnamese immigrant mother. Only a poet could squeeze so much beauty and pain out of the English language. His writing is spare and strong as he tells a tender tale of trauma.
Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division and New Order
I stumbled upon this podcast during the pandemic and spent many afternoons in 2020 walking from one end of Berkeley to the other listening to this story religiously. I spent a year at the University of Manchester, and this brought me back to my time there, dreaming of leaving school and starting a band. Oh Manchester, so much to answer for…
Forest Bees’ Between the Lines is available now via Dandy Boy Records.