I'm about to try to convince you that this Lithuanian electro-pop duo can change your life
Thoughts/FEELINGS, peculiar music, and actions to improve our world, from Dave Maher.
This is Beissoul, and he gets even better
Words cannot convey all I feel about Beissoul & Einius. For the past year, I’ve spread the gospel of this Lithuanian electro-pop duo that sounds like a more mainstream M83 fronted by a singer who dresses like Jamiroquai but sings like Macy Gray, and also they have a vague philosophical framework they call “electrofashion.” But I feel like a Mormon with the polite-nod responses I get.
I don’t know how to be evocative and compelling when telling you about them, when all I want to say is “BEISSOUL & EINIUS ARE ONE OF MAYBE FOUR TOTAL BRIGHT SPOTS FROM THIS WHOLE YEAR FOR ME—OKAY MAYBE THAT’S AN EXAGGERATION, WHEN YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT LIFE IS FULL OF BRIGHT SPOTS, LIKE DOES REALLY GOOD COFFEE IN THE MORNING COUNT AS A BRIGHT SPOT BECAUSE IF SO THEN WE’RE TALKING 50 TO A HUNDRED SOLID BRIGHT SPOTS I’VE GOT IN MY YEAR DESPITE IT BEING A MASSIVE INTERNATIONAL SUCKSHOW, BUT WHY AM I TALKING ABOUT COFFEE I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU BEISSOUL & EINIUS HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE AND I KNOW PEOPLE SAY THAT TO MEAN THEY REALLY REALLY LIKE SOMETHING BUT I ACTUALLY MEAN THEY HAVE CHANGED MY FUCKING LIFE PLEASE JOIN THIS CULT SO I CAN HAVE SOMEONE ELSE TO TALK TO ABOUT THEM!!!!”
Let’s back up. Here are a few things you should know about Beissoul & Einius:
Almost every one of their songs is in 4/4 time.
They don’t get clever with song titles. Their titles come directly from their lyrics, usually from the chorus.
Beissoul is the frontman’s stage name. It is a phonetic portmanteau for “bass soul.”
Einius is the producer. His name is pronounced “ae-noose,” which sounds like an Eastern European saying “anus.” It is his real name.
Beissoul claims he doesn’t own a pair of jeans. His reasoning? “It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” Case in point:
They love aliens. Their music videos are full of them, like this 7-minute short film for “Lion”:
My introduction to Beissoul & Einius came almost exactly a year ago.
I was spending a week in Vilnius, Lithuania (the capital) after performing Feed Wolf Ice Cream: A Comedy Show About Death for a month at the Edinburgh Fringe. I wanted to go somewhere unusual but where I wouldn’t feel constant pressure to go on adventures. I could just read at cafes, listening to people speak in Lithuanian. And I did.
But this particular day, I went on a hike through a forest outside of the city, and when I got back, I was exhausted. I went to a cat cafe to unwind and listen to cats meow in Lithuanian.
My trip overlapped (unintentionally) with Vilnius’ Capital Days festival, which was shockingly similar to most street festivals in major American cities. I saw the poster for the festival on my bus ride back from the forest.
The headlining bands were Beissoul & Einius and Daddy Was a Milkman, whose name amused me but whose music I actually dug (kind of Kings of Convenience-y, a reference that precisely dates me as a college student in the mid-aughts).
When I sampled Beissoul & Einius’ music, it sounded like formulaic, EDM-adjacent pop music, and that voice! Was that his real voice? It sounded like a vocoder gargling a vocoder, and that description wasn’t yet a compliment.
Alas, Daddy Was a Milkman had played the day before, and Beissoul & Einius were my only option to hear authentic Lithuanian pop music the night of my forest-and-cat-cafe excursion.
I left the cat cafe and walked in the direction of my rented apartment, past the large main square with the geometric-Tower-of-Pisa looking Vilnius Cathedral. There was a stage flanking the cathedral, and Beissoul & Einius were about to start.
I figured I’d stay for the beginning to see what they were about. If nothing else, it was an experience to add to the memory bank. Then this happened:
The picture doesn’t do justice to the puffy balls dangling from that hat.
That was Beissoul’s opening outfit, and he moved seamlessly through at least two others. He danced loosely, but his body snapped into each beat. He moved the clothes like extensions of his body, and immediately, I was jealous of another performer who uses physicality more masterfully than I fear I ever will.
So obviously I had the perfect set-up to elevate my opinion of the music: alone in a very foreign country, the end of a day in nature, blissful physical exhaustion, stimulating visuals from the outfits and the dancing. But I promise this isn’t a had-to-be-there situation.
I know because I spent the next hour alternating between surrendering to this beautiful, strange, fun music and furiously writing down any snippets of lyrics I could hear in order to identify the songs later, so I could recreate the set in playlist form. I even was able to crib the sounds of the one song with Lithuanian lyrics.
I still listen to that playlist all the time.
This is the closest I’ve seen a video come to capturing the feeling of that show (soundtracked by my favorite song of theirs):
Since that night, I’ve tried to figure out just what it is I love about Beissoul & Einius. They’re not really one of my favorite bands. They’re one of my favorite things.
How do I explain their appeal to people who might hear them like I first did as boilerplate electro festival pop, before His Holiness Beissoul walked onto that stage and gave me my Road-to-Damascus moment?
I’ve pressed for the answer. I’ve come up with placeholder reasons for my love: Beissoul’s fashion sense, their over-the-top videos, the music’s just fun. But none of those are quite right.
A couple days ago, it hit me for real. It was the obvious thing that’s been staring me in the face, the brute fact that confronts anyone who comes into contact with these peculiar artists: They are unembarrassable.
They play unabashedly mainstream electronic pop music. They title songs “Drama Boy” and “Innocent Black Coffee.” They invite male models to dance awkwardly on stage in giant backpacks they designed as part of an unwearable fashion line. They take big swings in their lyrics, like this translation of that one song from the set in Lithuanian:
Build cities, decorate them with thoughts
And everything you create will shine on you
And again, aliens are very important to them.
Beissoul himself said it.
It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
I’m running out of words to throw at this passion, this joy I feel even thinking about this absurd Lithuanian pop duo, so I’ll give Beissoul the last word.
What I’m about to show you is a clip I have bookmarked in a folder called “Fun & Inspiration.” I watch it to inspire myself to keep going. In it, Beissoul is attempting to hype up another street festival crowd who clearly don’t know him during a set in the middle of the day. He sings, dances, and exhorts the bored crowd to join him. At first, it feels like watching a video of a comic bombing onstage. But slowly, he wins them over, by just continuing to do exactly what he does.
I think I know the tipping point, the moment when he started to convert the crowd to Biessoulism. It’s at 2:35. There is an instrumental break coming in the song. And unafraid of looking silly, in love with his art, embracing the absurd, he says into the microphone:
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna dance.
Then he does.
This Is “This Is Your Afterlife”
Here’s a taste of this week’s episode of my podcast, This Is Your Afterlife.
Episode 7 features Neo-Futurist Jasmine Henri Jordan.
Wamp Wamp (What to Do)
Watch a live reading of “FriendCon,” my sitcom pilot, this Saturday at 2pm PDT/5pm EDT! I wrote it with my longtime pal and collaborator Daniel Strauss (“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Second City Mainstage). He sums it up well below. I’m the most excited I’ve been in quarantine. A bunch of people are coming to watch, and you can join us by registering here.
Celebrate. Last week, we raised a total of $75 for Hurricane Laura Relief, a project by BIPOC & Trans-led climate justice organization Imagine Water Works.
Donate to Brave Space Alliance, the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ Center on Chicago’s South Side.
I attended (via Zoom, sigh) an “Abolition as Presence” panel last week featuring Communications and Outreach Coordinator Jae Rice, who spoke on BSA’s commitment to culturally affirming aid. Jae joked about people donating kale chips to their food pantry—“Those’ll go to the volunteers”—and awakened me to a facet of mutual aid I hadn’t given much thought to before.
I just donated $15 (and I’ve made it one of my recurring monthlies). Reply with what you donate, and I’ll post our total next week!Cry your whole fucking face out watching John Was Trying To Contact Aliens, a short documentary about a dude in Michigan who spent decades broadcasting joyful, non-commercial music to extraterrestrials. I saw the promo panel on Netflix when it came out a couple weeks ago, but what finally compelled me to watch (nod to Music Journalism Insider) was finding out it is A) 16 minutes long, and B) a devastatingly heartwarming love story. You’ve got time. Do it!
Buy a planner from Alter Planning Co., a Black-owned company that makes simple, intuitive planners. I ordered the 2021 Annual after using the Dailies for a couple weeks. I love a good planner, but I’m discerning in my planner taste. These are great! And you can get 10% off if you use this code at checkout: ALTERED. Alter isn’t paying me (yet!), I just get their emails and thought I’d pass this on.
May I Play You a Sound?
What else could you expect here but the playlist I made that night when I got back from the Beissoul & Einius show? Here is that set list. It’s a fucking hits collection.
Oh, and THEY HAVE A NEW ALBUM COMING SOON. It’s called Questions in the Dark, which is like the Platonic ideal of a Beissoul & Einius album title.
They’ve released the first single (and video), and it’s very intentionally not a banger! It’s like an ethereal… swooner? It’s great.
‘Til next week, be absolutely ridiculous.
DM
Yo, thanks so much for reading! Hella Immaculate is a free newsletter, and I bust my ass to make it great. I’m a DIY operation, which means we’re in this together. If you love and believe in my work, please consider supporting me, so I can keep dedicating my life to it. I believe direct support for the artists we love is the way past celebrity, blandness, and corporate control and into a future where there’s an abundance of vital and varied art. Here’s how you can support me.
Come to a show! My live shows are the ultimate manifestation of my whole thing.
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Who is Dave Maher?
I’m a writer/performer and comedian who creates one-man shows that combine standup, theater, improvisation, storytelling, and performance art. I also teach, act, and do voiceover. I've appeared on/at/with This American Life, the Edinburgh Fringe, Steppenwolf Theatre, the Annoyance Theatre, and the Neo-Futurists, and I used to write for Pitchfork.