Minus The Bear - Acoustics (Distro Title)

Minus the Bear was always a guitar band at heart. The elaborate finger-tapped melodies of This Is What I Know About Being Gigantic and Highly Refined Pirates set the Seattle quintet apart from other forward-thinking indie rock acts of the time, but the band’s creative trajectory showed an increasing fascination with supplementary electronics and new sonic approaches. While keyboards and drum machine break-beats were already a feature on early releases, the band delved deeper into modern sounds with the glitchy DL4-fueled guitar samples on Menos El Oso and the remix album Interpretaciones Del Oso. But then the band released Acoustics, a collection featuring one new unplugged track and six old favorites from their first three albums stripped of modern ornamentations and re-envisioned for the acoustic guitar. Given the band’s interest in new music technology, this deconstructed approach served to highlight their strength as songwriters, their dexterity as players, and their malleability a