A graduate of Chocolate Industries' eclectic Urban Renewal Program, Caural (aka Chicago multi-instrumentalist Zachary Mastoon) offers all sorts of mixed signifiers on the Blurred July EP, his miniature follow-up to last year's full-length debut, Stars on My Ceiling. Falling somewhere between lite-jazz, TNT-era Tortoise, Four Tet incidentalism, and aesthetically correct elevator chops, Blurred July includes three post-rock/hip-hop instrumentals, plus one slightly raucous vocal jam presided over by labelmate Diverse.
Despite his knack for post-rock pastiche, Caural remains difficult to pin down. A recent piece he contribute to Dusted Magazine mentions Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, Minor Threat's Complete Discography, the sheen of Slowdive and MBV, and Mille Plateaux's experimental ambient works as important musical building blocks. Blurred July, decorated by UK graffiti artist/MC Kid Acne (of Toah Dynamic), evokes old-school hip-hop commingling with underground comic books, Saturday morning cartoons and electronica-minded Flash sites. Or, though you may never see these masterminds in one sentence again, imagine the teeming gentleness of Nobukazu Takemura's Child & Magic revamped and expanded to include the moodier, noir moments of Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City".
Further complicating the catch phraseology, Mastoon gets all literary on us. If you've read Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, the opening track "Goodbye May Kasahara" offers additional resonance. Begin by peeling back the Rhodes and pay especial attention to anything vaguely reminiscent of Murakami's mysterious and charming teenage character, May Kasahara. Maybe her unread letters, slight limp, beloved duck people. Nothing. If you take a step back, "Goodbye, May Kasahara" (note the comma) is the last sentence spoken by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle's main character, Toru Okada (aka Mr. Wind-Up Bird). He's said it a couple of times, but at narrative's end, it's an unwilling renunciation of a more childlike path in life, a world of lemon drops, back-porch crushes and nervous kisses. Instead, Okada walks headfirst into a crumbling marriage, solitary ruminations, duty, adulthood's various shades of grey.
I admire the romantic spirit. Though "Goodbye May Kasahara" doesn't capture the importance of this subtle departing sentiment, it is a pretty track. Beginning with fractured percussion enveloped by applause (and then more interspersed, pronounced handclaps), the song's accented by vibes, brushed snare, rattling shakers, vocal sighs, the strains of mechanization. Things pick up with a more pronounced drumbeat, the repetition of hi-hat, bass swells. I'd compare it to Susumu Yokota's "Sky Blue" or mention the acoustic/analog/synth vibe of Max Tundra's Some Best Friend You Turned Out to Be without as many dips, shifts or sways. And then where?
The second track, "Blacktops and Plains", confuses its forefather's easy-listening sleepwalk with Diverse's casually smooth, scattershot one-liners. An even more syrupy Jay-Z in love with fifty-cent words, he delivers his spiel over a busted-up and distorted drum track. The real charm's his laidback, mumbled chorus: "Tryin' to open up your blacktops and plains." Back on the original path, "Visuals" is a feast of rain stick, electronics, cymbal reverb, soft percussion and backwards dissolves. Caural samples a girl's voice and spits it back out in a leisurely, well-spaced loop. Yeah, digital-age Rod McKuen. Or a more structured, poppy take on Fennesz's "Paint It Black". Or Lali Puna veering onto an anonymous German countryside. The finale, "Sipping Snake Blood Wine (Savath & Savalas Remix)" is the Scott Herren remix of a track that first appeared on Stars on My Ceiling. This version removes the hectic sloppy kiss drumming of the original (it always reminded me of a cardboard 2x4) and replaces it with a sleepier percussive track. On the whole, the remix is cleaner than the original, jibing well with the other compositions.
All this to say: okay, I'm not sure how to label Caural. In some ways, Blurred July's nothing more than another installment of trip-hop built-on Grade A influences, but Mastoon pursues his craft with enough creativity and smarts that, instead of spending time being dismissive, I'm just wondering where he plans to go next.
