The Sun Left and Took the Moon With It releases April 14
After losing two friends they lived with in the early 2010’s-one to suicide, the other to a sudden medical emergency, Christine and Chad McAllister, the Portland indie rock duo known as Bees in a Bottle, learned that there’s a rippling effect to traumatic loss. As time went on, Christine began thinking more deeply about the impact of self-destructive loss in particular. After researching male artists who’d died by suicide or addiction, she found that there were similar rippling effects that drew her to the women in their lives. She wanted to explore the consequences for the women who survive famous male musicians. Consequences that are rarely viewed with enough compassion, nuance, or regard to the truth of their experience. She felt compelled to bring these voices to the table, through the lens of her own experience as a woman, survivor and musician.
There’s an entire mythology surrounding rock gods of the past who’ve died by suicide or addiction. They become larger-than-life icons, the much-studied subject of books and movies whose antics are worshiped and aspired to. Their deaths are all too often seen as the inevitable result of genius burning too bright for this world. This narrative has persisted for years. Most people know what it means to hear someone’s gone out “like a rockstar.” There’s a romanticism of all-or-nothing living which the music industry around the world has been all too happy to perpetuate.
But what if we looked closely at the human cost of believing this mythology? What if we looked at how beautiful lives were lost, are still lost, in service of this narrative? What if we looked beyond the accomplishments of icons and asked about how their destruction impacted the people who were closest to them? Specifically, the women. After all, the mythology of the rock god is inextricably coupled with a misogynistic view of women as, at best, marginalized accessories (even if these women are accomplished artists in their own right), and at worst, band-breaking manipulators, or even culpable for their loved one’s demise.
Yes, these women were undoubtedly shattered by traumatic loss, but they were also resilient survivors of it. Something both members of Bees in a Bottle knew something about from their own lives. Something they felt confident they could hold space for through music.
The McAllisters play the majority of the instruments on the record, but brought in collaborator, Mark Powers (notably of Floater) to lay down perfectly controlled, yet agitated drums to mirror the tone of the record. The Sun Left and Took The Moon With It was recorded at The Hallowed Halls in Portland, Oregon, a historic space responsible for records by artists like Sleater-Kinney, Amanda Palmer, Shook Twins and Daughter. You can feel the expansive, reverent space of this more than a century old former library in quiet moments throughout the record. The McAllister’s enlisted the help of Hallowed Halls Producer/Engineer, Connor Riesing to help with the record. “Working with Connor made this record go so smoothly. With a record this heavy in content, it can feel like too much at times to try to get it right. Connor became a much-needed light, a buoyant person to bring us back to the humor of ourselves and the inherent fun of bringing music to life.”
“Ultimately,” Christine says, “I want to give people something that deepens their understanding that there’s pain and love and anger and deeply complicated feelings they can connect to in a way maybe they hadn’t considered before. I want someone to hear this record and feel like maybe some of their own pain got worked through.” Bees In A Bottle’s new album, The Sun Left and Took The Moon With It will be released April 14, 2023.
Bees in a Bottle
The Sun Left and Took the Moon With It
Self Release
April 14, 2023
1. Wet Widow
2. You Alone
3. No Clean Slate
4. Jealous Mistress
5. Magnetic
6. Darlin’ I’ll
7. Still Your Baby
8. Hang Fire
9. Gardener
10. You Belong
