Project MA Announces New Album, “Bees”
Cover reveal!
For the past year Adam Fagelson and Michael Jarmer have been hard at work generating new material for their next album, again, Adam in Vermont and Michael in Oregon, sending tracks back and forth via the mighty Google Drive. In fact, that generative period was so surprisingly productive, they ended up in about eight months with enough material for TWO full-length records. Initially, the idea was to release a double album, but the executives at Refrigerator Records were having none of that: too expensive, they said. So Adam and Michael decided to release the first half of that double record and have announced the release of “Bees” for October, 2025!
The writers here at the Here Comes Everybody blog asked Michael in a recent interview, so, how is this album “Bees” different from the debut, “You Are Here”? At first, he responded with just two words. “It’s better,” he said. Asked to elaborate, he elaborated. “Musically, it’s a little more textural, a little more experimental. We allowed the songs to get bigger. They're longer, for the most part. There are only 8 songs, but the record clocks in just under 40 minutes, which is standard, if not a bit long, for a full single album. Lyrically, it’s a bit on the dark side. It’s not morose or anything, but I think it reflects the times we’re living in and is about how individuals or groups of people cope or deal with a world that seems to be coming apart.”
Why “Bees”? Tell us, Michael Jarmer, why bees? “First,” he says, “I was absolutely intrigued by a news story I read about a girl who told her parents there were monsters inside her bedroom walls. It turned out to be 50,000 bees. I mean, that’s just a wonderful image. I couldn’t let go of it. I felt like I had to incorporate it somehow. It ended up finding its way into a lyric or two, and the narrative aspect of the news piece found its way into a spoken word bit. I love the image of bees. We’re typically afraid of bees, certainly, we don’t want them inside our walls. But our lives are dependent upon bees. We need them. We’re doomed without them. Bees are in a precarious state and so are we. That’s what this album is about—that state of precariousness.
Returning to round out the Project MA sound, both René Ormae-Jarmer and Willow Bacon once again lend their talents to the proceedings. “Bees” is set for an October release and you’ll be able to preorder soon from the Here Comes Everybody store.