Ethereal debut indie album with acoustic rock as well as fat electronics on this colored vinyl LP from Eat Concrete. Friends and musical collaborators for nearly 20 years, Zachary Mastoon (better known as Caural) and Jason Hunt saw the first hints of Boy King Islands emerge in the summer of 1995. Outside in a park together at twilight, their improvisation unfolded as the basis for "Feeling Nowhere" -- an emotive and melancholy progression, magically unforgotten years later. Named after a painting by outsider artist Henry Darger, the duo of Boy King Islands was resurrected in the winter of 2002 when -- then roommates -- they stretched microphone chords around doors and through the thin walls of their north side Chicago apartment to capture the beginnings of what would become their debut: buzzing Fender guitars with the gnarl of tube distortion; the tines of a Rhodes or the warm hum of a Wurlitzer; an mbira plucked through a wah pedal or a wooden box with broken glass and beads shook as percussion; and Mastoon's whispery and always doubled vocals swimming in a wash of crashing cymbals. Mastoon returned to NYC that next year but, when not on tour or working on releases as Caural, he and Jason sent each other ideas to be fleshed out in infrequent studio sessions deftly engineered by their friend Keith Kreuser. Years later, the resulting collection of fuzzy and swirling shoegaze-influenced pop music spanning nearly 8 years was mixed in Chicago where the two began: with nostalgic echoes but eyes gazing forward. Listen to it loudly. On chlorine-colored vinyl.
A1 Math Is Christ
A2 Wear You Well
A3 Sweetness
A4 Dead Friend
A5 Hellos After Goodbyes
B1 I Talk To The Wind
B2 Feeling Nowhere
B3 Lights In The Sky
B4 Augusta
B5 Atlantean
B6 Ghost Walk
