Forest Bees is the moniker of San Francisco-based artist Sheetal Singh, who was once a member of the shoegaze band The Stratford 4. Today we’re excited to announce her debut self-titled album as well as premiere a new video for a song from the album, “Alexa.” Forest Bees is self-released by Singh and is out on June 12.
The song opens with a gently chiming tone as feedback and Singh’s ethereal vocals gradually creeping into the mix. As the song moves past its intro, the video depicts a lone figure wrapped in an outfit that appears to be made from an emergency foil blanket. Later the video depicts scenes of humanity in dramatic fashion, flashing a picture of an atom bomb’s mushroom cloud, protests, mid-city traffic before moving back to a split screen of the foil-wrapped figure and Singh singing in a room with red filtered light. The meaning is not explicit, but the imagery is nonetheless very powerful to absorb.
The figure moves gradually, much like the flow of the music in “Alexa,” making their way to some unknown destination. If you were to make a dream pop Venn diagram, the sound on “Alexa” would certainly fall further into the “dream” circle; it takes nearly two minutes before Singh sings words that can be easily understood. Before that, chants and breathless, wordless singing guide the song through its initial movements.
The Stratford 4 were an acclaimed shoegaze band from the Bay Area who released two records before being signed by Ric Ocasek to Elektra Records. They recorded a third album that was produced by the late The Cars frontman, but as the industry contracted in the post-Napster fallout, the band was lost in the shuffle. While they did successfully reunite in 2015, it came with a realization for Singh.
“I was bored,” she said. “It wasn’t what I wanted to do. In fact, it never really was,” she recalls. “I never felt like I was able to express myself in the Stratford 4, which was a white, male-fronted, guitar-heavy shoegaze band. I did love the music and my bandmates … [But] I knew I needed to do it on my own terms.”
Singh, a bass player in The Stratford 4, taught herself to use the instruments and recording tools needed to make music as a solo artist. Forest Bees pulls influence from a variety of sources, including Mazzy Star and Ladytron, the “Madchester” scene – The Stone Roses, New Order, The Smiths, etc. – and the melancholy sounds from Bollywood films she’d listen to growing up.
Forest Bees track list
1. “Alexa”
2. “Alone/Together”
3. “Hollow Bones”
4. “Subverter of Geography”
5. “Golden Dream”
6. “Observer of Geography”
7. “Fever Dream”
8. “Off Color”
9. “In June”
10. “Dust”
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