Here I am walking out of a spin cycle, typing my way out of the schizophrenic blizzard that Bear Hands lead singer Dylan Rau sets off with his knack for parceling out a year’s worth of kooky “this just occurred to me” thoughts in a short EP. It’s an artistic clip of just how disjointed phrases can live in harmony alongside that hot and bouncy rock and roll that’s been meaning to take its act to the clubs for a while now – akin to the Secret Machines with some Rapturing out in its backbeats, but sporting grungier guitar ‘tude. It’s not really with those intentions that Bear Hands exists, for their haunts are the scrubby bars where they can sit overtop a glass of alcohol and write crazy shit on napkins, tuck those into their back pockets and try to remember what was going on in their minds the next morning after they’d pulled them out again with the wadded up dollar bills that forgot to be spent on another round or two. Rau and team have just gone about putting an entire bar’s worth of conversations – a bar explosion – back together without doing it carefully as if they were putting a jigsaw puzzle together. They didn’t bother to do the borders and then work their way to figuring out the monochromatic bodies of water or sky. They made simple work of the task, just taking the big, verbal swarm of thoughts, throwing them down onto a table, pulling out the masking tape and just taping them however they fell – a bit like Stephen Malkmus likes to do it, but more as the late and almost great Whirlwind Heat did. Rau chips in here with his thoughts about Ghostface discussing the proper order of crotch and face washing and women who hate their babies. What did we just say?

These are a few of my favorite things:
One — “The World According to Pretty Tony.” Ghostface goes on a rant on his supplemental album about personal hygenie. Highlight: “Don’t wash your nuts and then wash your face. That’s not nice. That’s not a good look son.”

Two — Fresco Tortilla. A New York chain of cheap Mexican restaurants owned and operated by Chinese people. Fusion cooking baby. Not really though. It’s just fresh and delicious Mexican food.

Three — The Line 6 DL4. Just bought this delay pedal and it’s the tops. Many, many hours spent kneeling in front of our PA system knob spinning and blunt smoking. Get one today!

Four — The Tyra Banks Show episode where mothers come on to talk about how much they resent their newborn children. Important quote: “I don’t want some stranger sucking the life out of my breasts.”

Five — Cale Parks. We just went on a little trip up state with him and he is stupid good. Awesome tribal grooves, spacey vocals, great vibe. Nice guy too.

Bear Hands Official Site