Cagey House: shadowy figure who has not only developed an idiosyncratic imaginary world and an instantly recognizable sound over the course of half a dozen albums or so, it (He? She? They?) has also pretty much invented an oddball musical subgenre all for himself (let‘s call it a He for the purpose of this review).
This, it’s worth adding, he has done by modest means; a master of low-tech computer avant-rock, painting the town all orange and red like some obscure fauvist librarian brought up on Archie comics, sci-fi novels, naïve video games and a weathered book on Bob Rauschenberg.
With The Window Hat, Cagey House’s self-dubbed “pseudo-post-synth-rock psychedelic goo” gets a tad more iridescent and inventive, taking his well known knack for outrageous musical synthesis one step further into the unknown.
So, let’s see what this prolific mad musical scientist has dreamed up for us this time around…
“Two for Top Cat” (don’t you just love his song titles?) kicks off the proceedings in great style, a simple lumbering beat, and some rollicking synth/guitar figures that do bring to mind drunken cats out on a bender… or the ad campaign for a Venusian syrup bar franchise. As always, please pay close attention to the playful harmonic intricacies in Cagey’s work, a trait that seems to get more complex and colourful with each succeeding recording.
“Vanish Pedal’s” menacing piano chords come straight at you like some angular stalker out for revenge, offering a tonal swerve that is common in his albums yet never predictable. But, nothing stays solemn or serious for too long on this particular planet, hence the comical ray-gun entering the stage from the right and engaging in perplexing dialogue with the stalker piano.
“Pan CBR” shows Cagey at his finest… this is what it is all about, every little gizmo and rhythmic device clicking and whirring in exact timing, opening up a window to a luxurious dream dimension decorated by symbolist painters and inhabited by Paul Klee’s fluorescent fishes. Ah, what swooning melodies!
“A Book Apparatus” sounds kinda like early Cagey House to me, like something out of Octopus Two… only the canvas of interlocking figures has now grown busier and even more whimsical.
“Some Cling for Clang”: Ennio Morricone floating on a space station orbiting an exotic planet in a distant galaxy… writing an epic tune for the cowboys that will be setting foot on virgin jungles tomorrow… and maybe getting some subconscious influence from the art deco circuitry that just sprouts in every corner of the station.
“Machine Reet”. A big WOW for this one. I mean, jeez… industrial clamour in the rhythm section having fun like a child on a pool of rubber balls… an 8bit palette for the main voice, whose head starts out like an atonal jazz motif made into a jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing, and then, it just turns baroque on us! And, it’s counter-pointed by a loud acid rock guitar solo! This track should be an absurd abnormality, destined for failure… yet the absurd wonder flies!
“Silencio” takes the absurd vibe of the former track and runs with it, not caring about the cliff that’s just beyond the hedge. It rocks, even in a funky way… yet it’s even weirder and more spastic than a Ren and Stimpy dance.
“Steeple Perch”, a Cagey House ballad. Cagey House’s ballads are usually far more sensitive to what’s going on with the actor’s hands than with his face, so to speak; they’re oblique and like to focus on the very small and enigmatic details… like, the props barely visible inside the frame, made ambiguous by moody lightning.
“Table Fruit and Feather” has a surreal melody, with some very strange digressions shooting off from its torso. Imagine a ball made of strings… and these strings are made of images put together with Magrittean logic… and the ball rolls and picks up pieces of candy… like that Katamari game.
“Soft Cover”. This song should be blasting from the speakers of a theme park based on the Adventures of Nemo in Slumberland. Again I get that odd recurring feeling, the patented cagey-housesque retro futurist nostalgia... The
House of th Future that never was.
Come to think of it, that’s it, that’s what Cagey House is… even more than a rare and solitary musical genre, it’s an adjective. A nervous system abbreviated in two words. A tone. Cagey Housesque. A collectible series of ironic sci-fi pop dioramas, tongue in cheek miniature utopias assembled from discarded chocolate wrappers and bubblegum smeared baseball cards.
Eduardo Padilla |
