• Premiere: Bear Worship – Frequency

    October 20, 2017 - By 

    Back in June we were very pleased to premiere one of our favourite Irish albums of the year, WAS by Dublin’s Karl Knuttel AKA Bear Worship. A release we called “a prismatic traipse of melodically rich, compositionally ambitious alt-pop” the album peaked on various tracks, not least new single ‘Frequency’. Backed by b-side ‘Post Geographical Orientalism – a beautifully woven, Grandaddy-esque effort – the single is a layered, synth-washed gem that sees Knuttel’s beatific vocal take centre-stage. We’re all over this, and you should be, too. Frequency/Post Geographical Orientalism by Bear Worship

  • Q+A: Bear Worship WAS Here

    June 25, 2017 - By 

    Karl Knuttel – or Bear Worship, to use his professional name – has just released his nine-song debut album, WAS. It’s an exotic, hypnotic record that seems to exist in a time and place all of its own. Here, he talks to David Turpin about the process of making the album. I’d like to ask about the title of the album, WAS. It’s a very emphatic one-word title, and yet it also happens to be a very ambiguous word. I guess what I wanted to represent with the title is that every person wants to feel like they matter. Making…

  • Album Premiere: Bear Worship – WAS

    June 13, 2017 - By 

    Back in January last year, we were pleased to share ‘Our Friends’ by Dublin’s Karl Knuttel AKA Bear Worship. A track we said “evoked everything from the chamber folk balladry of Department of Eagles to the floaty dream-pop of Candy Claws” it marked the arrival of an artist with remarkable potential. Having moved to Shanghai, Barcelona and back to Dublin in the meantime, Knuttel has come good and then some on his sublime, nine-track debut album WAS. A prismatic traipse of melodically rich, compositionally ambitious alt-pop, the likes of the subtly ecstatic ‘Shimmerings’ and ‘Galapagos’ conjure the aforementioned acts, Grizzly Bear,…

  • Inbound: Bear Worship

    February 9, 2016 - By 

    Bear Worship is the new project from Irish musician Karl Knuttel, who has previously performed as Pinkie and as Ivan St John.  Here, he talks about his love of synthesisers, making music out of necessity, and the benefits of being ‘ridiculously controlling’. Words by David Turpin. You’ve said that Bear Worship emerged out of a time of anxiety and depression, and yet the music is far more dreamlike than nightmarish, and far more expansive than claustrophobic.  What do you mean when you say it was made “out of necessity”? You know, anxiety is a harrowing experience. It’s not at all…

  • Stream: Bear Worship – Our Friends

    January 18, 2016 - By 

    Evoking everything from the chamber folk balladry of Department of Eagles to the floaty dream-pop of Candy Claws, ‘Our Friends’ by Dublin’s Karl Knuttel AKA Bear Worship is a track revolving around the ever fractious realms of belonging/non-belonging and friendship. Released as a Double A-Side alongside ‘Pagodas’, the opening decree of the track – “I don’t belong here at all” – most certainly holds a sense of import throughout its four-odd minutes of brilliantly burrowing, subtly infectious chimera. Heck, we’ll go out on a limb here: four/five listens in, it’s one of the best tracks from an Irish solo artist we’ve heard in ages.