XI: Bleed Here Now is an absolutely titanic achievement that encapsulates the best that ’60s and ’70s rock has to offer – and a few of its shortcomings. It’s a throwback to a time when rock stars were organizing enormous benefits for good causes, We Are the World and Live Aid and Farm Aid in all their po-faced, possibly pompous glory. They succeed beyond their wildest dreams, as virtually every single aspect of XI: Bleed Here Now seems teleported from some distant past, when rock records were taken seriously, with overly earnest teenagers pouring over lyric sheets and album artwork like a prophecy. For XI: Bleed Here Now, they opted to lease Wolfshield Studio in their native Austin for several months in a bid to recapture some of that vintage magic. They contemplated their favorite albums, by art rock/prog giants like Rush, Peter Gabriel Genesis, and Kate Bush, as a possible antidote. The prognosis was grim, “saying more about digital technology than anything else,” as Keely puts it. As is so often the case for those of us who love music, Keely and Reece began to ruminate on the current state of music. This peace and spaciousness provided some critical distance to assess this strange world we’re living in as well as the music it produces. They hiked, walked dogs, cooked food, read books. Unlike much of the rest of the world, the pandemic was a peaceful nirvana for Keely and Jason Reece. The chair at the center of the mandala that is XI: Bleed Here Now is the same as virtually all art made between 20, the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent cryostasis of waves of lockdown. “Our true consciousness––that which abideth within this crude machination of clay and feldspar,” as Keely puts it. Keely reveals that the chair on Be Here Now‘s iconic mandala was meant to represent the chair from Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Bedroom and was meant to represent the seat of consciousness. In an essay accompanying XI: Bleed Here Now – the 11th album from Austin, TX, noise rock juggernauts …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – Conrad Keely writes about being raised by hippies and the ubiquity of Baba Rama Dass’ Be Here Now.
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