Bull of Heaven is an American experimental music project formed in Denver, Colorado in 2008. The project originally consisted of Neil Keener and Clayton Counts with help from various contributors. Since Counts' death in 2016, Keener has been the only member.
Bull of Heaven is mainly known for their extremely and exaggeratedly long pieces of music, mainly produced by Counts, with several pieces in their discography ranging from a few days to many millions of years long.
History
Formation: 2006–2009
Both key members behind Bull of Heaven started with a variety of earlier projects. Neil Keener was (and in some cases, still is) involved with several punk rock and post-hardcore bands, including Planes Mistaken for Stars, Git Some, Red Cloud West, and Wovenhand. Clayton Counts was also involved in Git Some, before he and Neil moved from Chicago to Denver, where Bull of Heaven was founded. Counts also gained notoriety in September 2006 when he created a mash-up of The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds with The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, aptly titled Sgt. Petsound's Lonely Hearts Club Band and credited to the band The Beachles. Various blogs and news sites favoured it; however, Counts was issued with a cease and desist.
Bull of Heaven's first piece, 001: Weed Problem, was released on their site on January 31, 2008. The same time the following year, the band had already released more than fifty pieces, totalling nearly three hundred hours of music. Even at this early stage in the band's history, they were already becoming known for their incredible song lengths; 019: Hypnosis, Drugs, and Mind Control (The Beginning: A Touch) is eight hours long, 028: Even to the Edge of Doom is twenty-four hours long, 044: A Corpse in My Arms on Awakening breaks the one-day mark at thirty-seven hours long, but is surpassed by 045: The Wicked Cease From Struggling which is exactly one week long.
2009–2010 Between April and May 2009, the band intermittently released a series of one hundred new songs, all named and numbered in Roman numerals. These pieces were most likely tests to see what they could do with their songs. Pieces I – C were the first of several breaks from the band's standard three-digit numbering system of releasing music.
From September 2009 to January of the following year, the band also started releasing another new series, known as Alephs. The first ten of these contained roughly 1000–1100 pieces in each sub-folder. Aleph10 and Aleph11 contain one million and ten million pieces respectively. Though Aleph10 had all ten million files,Aleph11 only has ~1640000.
The band gained acknowledgement in December 2009 in underground music communities when they released 118: The Chosen Priest and Apostle of Infinite Space, a piece that is over two months long.
In January 2010, Clayton Counts talked to The Fly about long players, discussing the various musicians that also delved into extremely long lengths of music, such as John Cage, Robert Rich, and even Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. With this, the band continued creating pieces of equally extreme lengths; pieces 145–152 all range from 50 to 140 hours each, known to fans as the "multiday series."
In June 2010, the band created another new set of pieces different from the numbered, Aleph, and I – C pieces; this was a set of ten untitled folders, each containing thousands of short pieces, named as 32 digits of hexadecimal code. These pieces were not made public, and were only posted in the band's media sub-directory of their website.
In July 2010, the band released three very long pieces, the third of which gained them notoriety online, mainly in communities and discussion boards focused around finding the longest piece of music ever made. 208: As You Etch on the Inner Window of Your Eye is over 38 days long, 209: Blurred with Tears and Suffering Beyond Hope is over 6 months long, but both are beaten by 210: Like a Wall in Which an Insect Lives and Gnaws, a piece that would have lasted exactly 50,000 hours, or over five years, but due to errors uploading, the piece has become partially lost..
2010–2013 Between the end of 2010 and 2011, the band started Era 3 (201-300) creating pieces that were not posted on the website and very anti-music releases. These include pieces with negative lengths, puzzles that, when solved, grant access to new songs, password-protected polyglot files, pieces embedded within other formats such as PDF and EXE, programs without any music, corrupted files, and infinitely looping SWF files.
In March 2011, the band released a series of pieces of extraordinary lengths known as the LCM series. This series, ranging from their numerical ordering of 238–260, is similar to the Longplayer idea – each sound is the length of a prime number, and each subsequent piece creates near-infinite lengths of time before they're synchronized. The final in the series, , would last over 8 septillion years before all the pieces synchronized.
In December 2011, three more extremely long pieces of music were released by the band: 285: A Violet Breath, 286: 0, and 287: n. These pieces only consisted of short sounds being repeated for the entire duration. 285 was over 13 months, 286 was over 3,000 years, and 287 was over 10 billion years long.
During 2012, the band only released three pieces of music: 288: Four Years Ago? Opium., an experimental hip-hop-adjacent track; 289: CALCULOR, a calculator that doubles as a music generator; and 290: Two-Legged Tigers and Crocodiles, a sound collage piece. In July, the band's site had many downages and 404 errors, leading to it eventually crashing completely. After a few months, however, the site returned and functionality resumed for the most part.
The band took a long hiatus until July 2013, at which time they released several hours of psychedelic rock. It was announced via their Facebook page that more new music would be made available within the year. In September they released a number of drone and post-rock tracks, and in November 299: Self-Traitor, I Do Bring the Spider Love, an hour-and-twenty-minute-long jazz fusion arrangement. By the end of 2013, the band had uploaded most of their music to a public domain Internet Archive collection, where all of their newer works reside as they continued to program a new website.
2014–present In early 2014, the band released a fan-made compilation of love songs, 300: Songs for Girls, followed by 301: Weed Problem II–V, and another extremely lengthy piece, 302: It is Part of Space and Time, which runs for at least 86 billion years. Clayton Counts was interviewed by Vice in the Netherlands, discussing a range of topics related to the band and their sonic approach.
On April 24, 2014, psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips included a reference to Bull of Heaven in the liner notes of the vinyl release of the condensed version of their 24 hour long piece 7 Skies H3. The Flaming Lips mistakenly call the band "Bull in Heaven," but refer to their pieces 118: The Chosen Priest and Apostle of Infinite Space and 210: Like a Wall in Which an Insect Lives and Gnaws specifically.
On July 10, 2014, the band released 305: Hostages are Human Beings. On July 12, 2014, 303: n(k), 304: 0(2^18x5^18) and 306: It is Not a Lack of Love were released, with the first two being over nine billion years and over three septillion years long respectively, although 306 is only 10 minutes and 51 seconds long. On the very next day, they released several other tracks of various lengths. As of today, 310: ΩΣPx0(2^18×5^18)p*k*k*k is their longest release, and lasts for 3.343 quindecillion years.
In May 2016, Bull of Heaven were discussed in Wesley Cray's essay "Unperformable Works and the Ontology of Music", written for Grand Valley State University and published in the British Journal of Aesthetics.
On October 17, 2016, Bull of Heaven released their final numbered release, 353: To Fill the Mouth of Their Monster, although pieces 334 onward never made it onto their website.
On December 4, 2016, Bull of Heaven made a post on their Facebook page announcing the death of member Clayton Counts.
After Clayton Counts' death, Bull of Heaven remained inactive, however on September 12, 2018, Neil Keener released the first new Bull of Heaven piece since Counts' death, titled "Fight Night for the Ghosts of Heaven". Neil has continued to make releases under the Bull of Heaven moniker, focusing on musical styles akin to progressive electronic and post-rock.
Musical style Bull of Heaven is mostly known for its slow, lengthy, unchanging music. Usually the focus is around dark ambient, minimalism, and drone; however, the band is not limited to just these genres and is a polystylistic act that has made several works in various other different styles. Pieces in their discography have been categorized as soundscapes, found sound, spoken word, post-rock, harsh noise, contemporary classical music, drone doom, avant-garde jazz and electronica.
Live performances Bull of Heaven has only performed a handful of live shows, notably at a party held by the Japanese band Boris in Denver in 2010, and at the Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center in St. Louis in 2014.
Discography
Bull of Heaven have hundreds of releases in their discography. Before Counts' death in 2016, they mainly focused on a progressively numbered series of works. In 2013, they put out the non-numbered Latin series, which consisted of drone/noise pieces mingled with numerous jam sessions with multiple musicians, notably which many were used and stitched together in the 83-minute psych rock track 299: Self-Traitor, I Do Bring The Spider Love. In 2018, Keener resumed the Bull of Heaven project and abandoned the conventional numbered system. Numbered releases (2008–2016) 001: Weed Problem (2008) 002: He Is Not Dead, but Sleepeth (2008) 003: Eleven Floors Down (2008) 004: Reasoning in State Hospital (2008) 005: A Lovely Pear (2008) 006: The Myth of Dinosaurs (2008) 007: Reptilian Takeover (2008) 008: A Wall Between Two Gardens (2008) 009: First Our Pleasures Die (2008) 010: A White Surveillance Van (2008) 011: Spacewalking Your New Way Home (2008) 012: Timeship 2012 (2008) 013: Elsa, Are You in There? (2008) 014: Upon One Pair of English Legs (2008) 015: Sun Ritual (2008) 016: Get Tree Body (Brainwash Solution) (2008) 017: Its Bones Are Soft (2008) 018: Candles Green, Heads and Skulls (2008) 019: Hypnosis, Drugs, and Mind Control (The Beginning: A Touch) (2008) 020: Legend of Degree (2008) 021: A Series of Elaborate Precautions (2008) 022: Man-Lizards, Masters of Venus (2008) 023: Odd Things, Brick Buildings (2008) 024: Some Vast Unknown (2008) 025: Tale of an Earth Man (2008) 026: A Curious Picture You See With Your Eyes Closed (2008) 027: Spirits Clad in Veils (2008) 028: Even to the Edge of Doom (2008) 029: Lions on a Banner (2008) 030: In That Shadow Lurks a Smile (2008) 031: Babylonian Mathematics (2008) 032: There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Revealed Pt. 1 (2008) 033: There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Revealed Pt. 2 (2008) 034: There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Revealed Pt. 3 (2008) 035: There Is Nothing Hidden That Will Not Be Revealed Pt. 4 (2008) 036: As Two From Ten Thousand Pt. 1 (2008) 037: As Two From Ten Thousand Pt. 2 (2008) 038: A Foot in Place of a Foot (2008) 039: Become Smaller and Smaller (2008) 040: A Beautiful Dog (2008) 041: By What Eternal Streams (2008) 042: Pre-Human Spawn of Cthulhu (2008) 043: He Is Cruel and Moves With Great Cunning (2008) 044: A Corpse in My Arms on Awakening (2008) 045: The Wicked Cease From Struggling (2008) 046: In All Creatures Are Lust and Hunger (2008) 047: At One With Their Antagonists (2008) 048: Foreign Ideas, Alien Philosophies (2008) 049: The Abyss of the Human Species (2008) 050: Far From the Black Ocean (2008) 051: Our Light Is a Voice (2008) 052: Without Hope, a Mute Offender (2008)