Today’s find comes from the upcoming album The River and the Rain In It by Syria, VA-based experimental duo James Lawrence Wolf and Raven Bauer Durham, both veterans of the local music scene. “Building a Beehive” is difficult to characterize, as it draws from ambient, drone, and even classical sounds. Guitars flow like the glassy river pictured on the album’s cover, placid but underpinned with a pulsing energy. Dusty, freeform violins are layered over one another until they form a buzzing cloud, undoubtedly meant to reflect the title of the song (or maybe they recorded the song and named it afterward, I’m not psychic.) Eventually, one violin conquers them all, rising above the fray for a meandering solo. The song has a strong sense of improvisation, as if Wolf and Durham recorded while staring out through a farmhouse window at a pastoral vista and reacted via music to whatever they saw. Wednesdays are always my busiest day of the week, so “Building A Beehive” was a good, calming, way to start the morning.
Listen to more by James Lawrence Wolf: https://jwolf333.bandcamp.com/
Listen to more Raven Bauer Durham: https://starofthesearecordings.bandcamp.com/album/conversations
Listen to both Wolf and Durham in their other band, Phoenix Auto Group: https://flagdayrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/enraptured-the-morning-star-rises
Bored In Pittsburgh 