The sounds on the LP are more musically dense and exploratory, marking an evolution for the duo. The band finds themselves delving much further into experimental territory, while also incorporating more traditional pop elements than they ever have. There's a mix of sonics on this album, featuring warbly guitars, hints of psychedelia, pop, disco, and strings, while also incorporating synth driven, electronic, sounds, as well as droney, hypnotic elements. The LP is a true reflection of the Chinese American Bear ethos: open, curious, and lighthearted.
Our new album is a collection of love songs in which we turned our melancholia into soft melodic pop songs and wis out now via Enigmatic Brunch Records. Through our midwestern lens we try to summon the sound of the Monkees if they were chosen over the Velvet Underground to be Warhol's Factory band. We like Harry Nilsson, John Andrews, and Chris Cohen a lot!
The official video for “Class Reunion” feels like Twin Peaks meets The Office, set in a sterile community center. With a firm grip around commonplace anxiety, it is mesmerizing how Beatrix stares straight into the camera and holds the viewer captive — Watch.
Quiet can hit harder than loud when the songs leave space to breathe. For link3—the duo of James and sunniva—that principle wasn't an aesthetic choice so much as a necessity. Their debut, On The Outline, emerged from bedroom studios, repurposed equipment, and a shared conviction that releasing imperfect work beats hoarding it indefinitely. The result is a slowcore record that trades polish for proximity, and listeners are responding in kind: instrumentals scored to wedding aisles, fan-made recreations, unsolicited messages about memory and tenderness.
James writes guitar-first, melodies arriving before lyrics, arrangements built on restraint rather than density. Sunniva's vocals—shaped by years of imitating favorite artists until her own tone surfaced—lock into his with an ease that belies the duo's origins as an online connection. They met through happenstance, bonded over a late-blooming obsession with albums as cohesive objects, and committed to a DIY ethos that prioritized momentum over perfectionism. The bathroom fan hum on early demos? Part of the texture now.
Now they're eyeing Montreal studios and string players, hoping to carry their quiet core into higher fidelity without sacrificing the living-room warmth that made On The Outline work. Violin lines floating over guitar, a producer who respects silence, slowcore sensibilities with broader reach. The blueprint is there. Whether they can scale up without smoothing over the rough edges that made them compelling in the first place—that's the open question. For now, the bedroom recordings are doing the work.
