Description
As a pixel leaves the screen, and dissolves back into the field of visual static, a small measure of air is released in the transaction. Most often, this newly liberated measure of air will seek either to expand it’s moisture or to expand it’s heat. Though, in a smaller percentage of cases the air will attempt to expand it’s phosphorescence. By reversing it’s course and attempting to dissolve back into the screen, the air endeavors, against all chemical possibility, to reconstitute with it’s severed pixels. What the air finds, is that the original pixils have themselves reconstitueted with the realm of natural static. With not a pixel to bond, the air is thus nudged to remain in the atmosphere surrounding the screen. A similarly emotional exchange bubbles through the uniquely hyper-dense surfaces sculpted by Caboladies. Theirs is a study of fatigued electronic code, magnified and multiplied. A mutant minimalist calculus of key generated go-zones and opaque technological patchworks, where machines self-destruct in pursuit of their own Walden equivalent. As plasma leaks from behind the monitor’s buttons, light reconvenes with the screenless realm. It is with great pleasure that DNT Records presents the self-titled long player from CABOLADIES. Recorded by the three piece of Chris Bush, Eric Lanham, and Ben Zoeller, this collection draws a narrative thread through their past releases on Arbor, Students of Decay, Mountaain, and their own Smooth Tapes imprint. It’s not so much a summation of their back catalog as it is a spotlight on a particularly fluid and holographic area of their sound. The result is a flowing and coherent collection of nuanced electronic mess. A real trip and an excellent demonstration of the Cabo ethos. Remastered from the original source materials by Pete Swanson. Artwork and Design by Robert Beatty in an edition of 500 on randomly colored vinyl. Pro-printed matte jackets with doubled sided 11×11 poster.
“Caboladies specialize in ecstatic electrical jams that have been making the rounds of the various psychedelic-post-noise-zonked tape and cd-r labels (Arbor, Gneiss, Peasant Magik, Digitalis, etc.). And at one time, these two Kentucky ex-pats (now living in Chicago) shared a tape release with Oneohtrix Point Never. They’ve always been a bit loopier and more shambolic than Oneohtrix, elevating their work to the druggiest plateau of spiralling bloop and eyes-dilated sparkle that you might expect from an Astral Social Club reworking of J.D. Emmanuel. Many of those tape and cd-r releases had disappeared from physical distribution, although some less than stunning sounding mp3s are making their way around the blogosphere. So, it’s really great to hear Caboladies on wax, which is certainly the best medium for these celestial crystallizations blossoming from piles of analogue gear. Taken separately, each piece of electronic gear is dialed to a twitchy spasmodic set of bleeps and swoops, that would be ungainly had Caboladies not playfully situated five, six, eight, ten complementary sets of tones that smear together into an ambient shimmer that’s anything but static. These irregular vibrations and delirious patterns are alive with psychedelic energy, that you could almost see fitting into some freak-folk nature jam session… but then again, everything needs to be plugged rather heavily into the grid. Great stuff! ” -Aquarius Records review
“Something like a “best of”, the self-titled LP by Caboladies collects five of the band’s tracks from five separate CDrs and cassettes previously released on Students of Decay, Mountaain, Arbor, and their own Smooth Tapes. The trio of Chris Bush, Eric Lanham, and Ben Zoeller have hardly experienced want for accolades over their five years of existence, and the regular investment of heavy labels and vinyl pressings (this is their second of three LPs so far) have only fortified the name. Mastered by Pete Swanson, this rerelease can hardly be called redundant, as the warm drones and synthetic ecology of tracks like “Aquarium Railroad” and “Body Tides” require the warm tone and clarity of vinyl. For those unfamiliar with the Caboladies sound, it would seem something charted equally between Taiga Remains, Hototogisu, and early Growing would do. “Psychic Birthmark” is an arbitrary intro, selected perhaps for its budding opening strains where most others begin in an assertion held beginning to end. Each element coming alive in essential harmony with the only sound world there is, the track has the quality of a chant rather than a drone, with each note shaped in an acoustic mouth (human or otherwise), whining, Om-ing. Conversely begun in media res, “Giddy Atonement” is a particularly keen study: bright and granular, the effects are discernible from the sources – voice, strings, knobbly electronics – but the experience is not a painful separation, but an audiophilic delectation of every element melting over the tympanic membrane. Reveling with slightly-less direction than the rest of these largely-directionless tracks, the meditation summarizes well the Caboladies sound: maximal static. Vision quest art by Robert Beatty. Recommended. On colorful spattered-grey vinyl, in an edition of 500 copies.” -Animal Psi
“A divine marbled slice of tuneful strobe-drone polyhedrons from a Chicago duo determined to do something more within the genre. Across the board, these guys succeed; this collection of tracks from tape and CDR releases is bursting with strong ideas, melodic collisions strengthened by a layered, vascular approach that allows them to bring in a wide variety of noises and treatments, while keeping it all balanced and natural sounding, the excessive nature of their music coming across as joyful and celebratory rather than overwhelming. Think of it as a more ecstatic take on the earlier Emeralds releases, or Eno’s Discreet Music – or better yet, just enjoy this on its own merits. Great stuff.” -Doug Mosurock, Dusted (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/931)
“Some fantastic minimalist electronics here that have a crude DIY edge that touches on aspects of primitive UK circuit benders like Storm Bugs et al while factoring in psychedelic restatements of reductive 20th century avant classicism and some fully punked kosmische synth.” -Volcanic Tongue
“This gets going with synth washes sounding like clouds of pink gas dissolving into the ether, then goes further into marshmallow hallucinations and tropical aquatic electronic climates, all refracted through mirror crystals right into a toucans all-seeing third eye! So basically ultra-trippy synthesizer explorations on marbled jade/dark turquoise vinyl from this crew that have had releases on Arbor, Digitalis and Aguirre. Totally blissed!” -norman records
