The beautifully sweeping folk dance and falling stars of "Orchard of Dreams" by Austin Texas based Swarme of Beese, pulls you into it's sepia toned hypnagogic state easily, effortlessly as you gladly succumb to beautiful sonic biomorphism. Encased in a sort of historical folk patina, ""Orchard of Dreams" is a perfect folk song, the thoughtful cadence / acoustic sway rolls in a circular way, feeling like a melancholy hymnal, maybe psychically connected to an amalgam of Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and Neil Young's "Helpless". Guitjo player Lynne Adele's lead vocal countenance is both earthy and ethereal, an earthbound angel who has seen things and Stephen Canner's acoustic guitar carries such melodic weight with Stefan Keydel's fiddle, the falling stars I mentioned before.
LINER NOTES (excerpted / bracketed) :
About the song:
[...is a tribute to the visionary American folk hero known as “Johnny Appleseed” (John Chapman, 1774—1845), who as a dedicated follower of mystical theologian Emanuel Swedenborg spent his life planting apple orchards for making hard cider throughout the American frontier.]
About the album "Orchard of Dreams":
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068893428853
https://open.spotify.com/artist/12a134jTe0qfX3lwoUpp0G
https://swarmeofbeese.bandcamp.com/album/fruits-of-the-golden-land
https://www.swarmeofbeese.com
The band began its life as acoustic Americana trio The Victor Mourning, formed in Austin in 2008 by songwriter/frontman Stephen Canner, with Lynne Adele on harmony vocals & guitjo, and Stefan Keydel on fiddle. Following the release of A Handful of Locusts in 2010, bandmates Canner and Adele embarked upon a self-imposed exile in Southern Appalachia, returning to Texas seven years later with plans to record a long-delayed second album.
When the project was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Canner and Adele found themselves rearranging, reworking, and for the first time, co-writing songs. Subtle layers of instrumental texture and hints of psychedelic folk were woven into the minor keys and stripped-down underpinnings of the band’s hillbilly noir aesthetic, creating a mutant folk sound with a strong American gothic undercurrent. A source close to the band has described it as “hillbillies who got lost on their way to the moonshine still and stumbled upon some mushrooms.” To reflect this metamorphosis, a rebranding was in order.
Around this time, Adele, an avid genealogist, discovered the Last Will and Testament of her 10th great-grandfather Matthew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut, who died in 1682. The final item in the document, listed as an addendum to the handwritten inventory of his assets, was a “swarme of beese” valued at 10 shillings. This humble item, a beehive, so teeming with life and potential, yet initially overlooked and then remembered only as an afterthought, holds all sorts of rich visual, folkloric, and literary associations, and has long been symbolic of the fruits of united effort. The pre-standardized, 17th-century spelling added to its charm, and inspired the band’s name change.
Swarme of Beese, Austin Texas, psychedelic folk, psych rock, freak folk, grunge tinged, grunge, rustic, southern blues rock, folk indie, timeless, 4th album "Orchard of Dreams",
The band began its life as acoustic Americana trio The Victor Mourning, formed in Austin in 2008 by songwriter/frontman Stephen Canner, with Lynne Adele on harmony vocals & guitjo, and Stefan Keydel on fiddle. Following the release of A Handful of Locusts in 2010, bandmates Canner and Adele embarked upon a self-imposed exile in Southern Appalachia, returning to Texas seven years later with plans to record a long-delayed second album.
When the project was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Canner and Adele found themselves rearranging, reworking, and for the first time, co-writing songs. Subtle layers of instrumental texture and hints of psychedelic folk were woven into the minor keys and stripped-down underpinnings of the band’s hillbilly noir aesthetic, creating a mutant folk sound with a strong American gothic undercurrent. A source close to the band has described it as “hillbillies who got lost on their way to the moonshine still and stumbled upon some mushrooms.” To reflect this metamorphosis, a rebranding was in order.
Around this time, Adele, an avid genealogist, discovered the Last Will and Testament of her 10th great-grandfather Matthew Woodruff of Farmington, Connecticut, who died in 1682. The final item in the document, listed as an addendum to the handwritten inventory of his assets, was a “swarme of beese” valued at 10 shillings. This humble item, a beehive, so teeming with life and potential, yet initially overlooked and then remembered only as an afterthought, holds all sorts of rich visual, folkloric, and literary associations, and has long been symbolic of the fruits of united effort. The pre-standardized, 17th-century spelling added to its charm, and inspired the band’s name change.
Swarme of Beese, Austin Texas, psychedelic folk, psych rock, freak folk, grunge tinged, grunge, rustic, southern blues rock, folk indie, timeless, 4th album "Orchard of Dreams",
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