“To what extent are the things that happen to us predetermined by our identity categories, and to what extent is that just the blues of being alive?”
Thomas Chaterton Williiams
Airy and incandescent, Between the Lines is the second album by Forest Bees aka Sheetal Singh, who formerly played bass in SF alt pop quartet The Stratford 4. Released by Dandy Boy Records, the new album rocks along through ten tracks exploring the effect of racial categories, specifically in regard to South Asian Americans. A couple tracks teeter on the edge of indie pop familiarity (“Absolution”, “Wolf in the Fable”) but much of the rest jumps the boundary, experimenting with tabla (“Some Cliches Are True”), warping washes of noise (“Between the Lines”), and ambient interludes all throughout.
