draag me, Chanel Beads

Philly’s lord of the shithouse, the project of Spirit of the Beehive’s Zack Schwartz and Corey Wichlin materialized during the pandemic. Both stuck at home, the duo sent emails to each other with ideas for songs. And over the course of a year, file sharing turned into fully realized tracks. Songs left on the cutting room floor of Spirit’s landmark record ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH, got rejiggered, made stranger, and put into the draag me universe along the way. But make no mistake — draag me isn’t a Spirit of the Beehive side project, it is a project that exists in a swirl of its own.

Chanel Beads started as a name for Shane Lavers to organize his voice memos, collages and experiments in songwriting. After playing house shows in different formations around Seattle, Shane and his collaborator Maya McGrory moved to New York. The music blends real and synthetic instrumentation that blurs the lines of genre and aims for something timeless. Their music is inspired by brief moments of eureka when everything seems to fall in line and make perfect sense. On stage, Chanel Beads is often joined by experimental musician Zachary Paul and other friends improvising along to the tightly arranged songs.