Bull of Heaven
 

Hello everyone,

This is my first post, so please be nice :). I actually joined this forum specifically to talk about this band in particular: Bull of Heaven. Let me prefice this by saying I have looked everywhere trying to find intelligent discussion on them, and failing to do so, hoped some of you might be able to pitch in ;)

For those who aren't aquainted with the group, they are technically classified as 'drone', although I'd say they could more accurately described as Soundscapers. Basically, they throw all musical conventions out the window in order to do whatever they want. Anything from a Hammond organ to a leaking refridgerator or answering machine played backwards could be showcased in one of their projects.

The other unique thing about these 'projects' is that they are long. Some are just a few minutes, but most last hours. A few are over 100 hours, and the longest clocks in at just under 5 and 1/2 years of continus music (the current record for a studio album).

One of their most interesting pieces is the two month long "The Chosen Priest and Apostle of Infinite Space", which I want to listen to in it's entirety of the course of several years. But before I start I want to get in touch with some other fans (if they exist :D) and find out what their experiences with the band have been like.

And for those who have never listened to any of Bull of Heaven's music before, don't let me give the impression that it is all long and impenetrable. They have many short, more easily stomached pieces. All of their music is streamed for free at their website, bullofheaven.com Bull of Heaven. Give some of it a try! A good first song is "Of What Far Sea Upon What Unknown Ground", it is only about 5 minutes and is very easy to tolerate.

I'm interested in hearing your opinions!

I listened to a bit, and it sounded very otherworldly and ethereal. Seems like something that would be nice to experience live and lose yourself in.

I listened to a little a while back, and to be honest, I couldn't tell weather it was a joke or not. Seriously, five hour "songs" that are basically a guy talking over slow, weird, repetitive sounds? Maybe I need to listen a little more, I could never get through most of their songs (for obvious reasons)

Do you have a link or something we could use to check them out?

I just listened to some of it on their site. Well, it's an interesting concept that breaks the notion of music as a temporal art. Because it doesn't really matter how long these pieces last, 5 min., 5 hours, 5 days, weeks, months, 5 years, the music is static or in a loop, it doesn't change in time (or the changes are so slow that we don't feel them as such); it becomes permanent. Ultimately, it can last forever. If we could, hypothetically, listen to it always, to infinity, it would become a silence...Hmmm...like I said, an interesting concept, but in the end, just a concept...like perpetuum mobile.

Don't they have one song that's zero minutes and zero seconds long? Talk about a concept.

Really? But that's approaching infinity too, only through the other side, so it fits their concept.

Their official website is Bullofheaven(dotcom). Sorry, I can't post URLs until I make a few more posts ;). It streams all of their music for free and numbers each project individually. Some of the longer songs also have excerpts.

And yes, their music is highly conceptual. But to the extent that listening to anything can give you an understanding of what Infinite Space really feels like, it is their music.

And I definitely agree with dankrsta; the length of the music isn't relevant, it is just different ways off exploring new conceputal ground.

One of the things I like most about "Of What Far Sea Upon What Unknown Unground" (track 205 on their website) is the fact that the music is more complicated than the ear's ability to percieve. It changes every time you listen to it, because you follow different subtleties inside the soundscape.

Now that is awesome :D

Thanks i will check it out and report back.

Sounds horribly conceptual and perhaps a bit pretentious to me. That doesn't mean it doesn't have value to me, but I tend to think of stuff like that more as curiosity than anything else. Unless it's really good perhaps.

You've piqued my interest, though, so I'll check them out!

edit :

Thought this ws an intro thread at first :D