DEADBEAR – Holding Heart Aces: Track Premiere
Electronic musician DEADBEAR returns with his new single Holding Heart Aces, the lead track from his forthcoming new album The Trees Are Dancing
DEADBEAR is the moniker of Berlin-based producer and electronic musician Nick Donovan. Donovan began experimenting with electronic music as part of a university 'laptop orchestra' and later making interactive software including being commissioned to build an app for CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
DEADBEAR wrote his new album The Trees are Dancing in two halves, with three songs in Manchester and three in Berlin burrowing deeper into his experimental electronic pop tapestry ripe with skittering tropical beats, woven with a kaleidoscope of vocal samples, found sounds and synths. Revealing new intricacies and textures upon each listen, the songs reflect a period of change and uncertainty in his life, inspired by his move from Manchester to East Berlin.
“It's hardly a concept record,” explains Donovan, “but throughout the writing and recording process this vision of broken but ultimately healed society, or peaceful aftermath of a great cultural/societal destruction was one that kept emerging”.
The Skinny is thrilled to be able to share the lead track Holding Heart Aces with you ahead of general release. Of the track Donovan tells us: “I always knew this track was going to open the album. In many ways it encapsulates the vibe of the whole record in the mix of electronica, ambient material, mixed world music elements juxtaposed with Western pop hooks and structures.
“For me this track is simultaneously euphoria and deep sadness – drawn from the experience it came from. Hopefully it connects to at least one of those in the listener. I also managed to try this track out a couple of times live at a few shows in Berlin last year and that helped in shaping it a lot through the interaction and the vibe I was getting back from the crowd.”
Holding Heart Aces is released on 10 Feb and The Trees Are Dancing is released on 31 Mar as a super limited gold cassette, and via BandCamp with a instant digital download