by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Forever diverting between albums of stunning beauty and challenging experimental records, Brooklyn’s The Cradle aka Paco Cathcart finds a home for each of him impulses under the same umbrella. It’s the project’s uncanny ability to combine complex layering in different mediums from electronic and world music to post-punk and no-wave, focusing on one element and branching out from there as the ideas form and are captured with his home recording set-up (Cathcart is also a prolific producer). Flexing his experimental inclinations, The Cradle will release new album, Sense Stats, on January 30th, an album seemingly constructed on dissonant loops, waves of thumb piano, compressed electronics, and hypnotic avant-garde compositions. Everything feels manipulated, bent, and reshaped with alien aplomb.
“Press B Now,” the record’s first single (clocking in at nearly twice the length of any of the album’s other tracks), is built on a lush bed of thumb piano, warping your senses with a repetition that covers the otherwise free form. Backwards sounds whir in and out as vocals are delivered with both a breezy croon and pitched up auto-tune effects, filtering itself into the slates of the overgrown rhythmic flair. It feels of another world, and it kind of is, but The Cradle has been offering these kind of mind expanding exercises in their music for years now. It’s always an incredible experience getting wrapped up in the world of The Cradle, and “Press B Now” is a great introduction to all that lies ahead on Sense Stats.
The Cradle will celebrate the release on January 30th in Brooklyn. You can message the band for the location.