If you’ve ever spent all day “counting what you know” you’ll definitely tune in to the vibe of The Cradle. This is the project of the Brooklyn-born-and-based musician/songwriter Paco Cathcart. The artist is readying a new LP entitled The Glare Of Success due out April 12th via NNA Tapes.
An interesting follow-up to The Cradle’s 2018 release for the label, Bag Of Holding, this new effort recontextualizes sonic elements from that album using a dub influenced production strategy. The Glare of Success features friend and Cradle cohort Sammy Weissberg’s acoustic instrumental arrangements (violin, viola, cello, clarinet, flute, double bass and horns), as well as select vocal contributions from Palberta (Ani Ivry-Block, Lily Konigsberg, and Nina Ryser.)
Where Bag Of Holding struck a contemplative, folk-oriented approach, The Glare Of Success moves in a more experimental dance direction with nods to dub and hip-hop along the way. For instance, “New Organ” loops various acoustic instruments into a humid tangle of revolving sounds and grooving percussive elements. Meanwhile, the track’s narrator stumbles through a fog of unknowing while pondering deeper epistemological questions. “Aw, don’t leave now,” they intone about halfway into the cut, before explaining, “Something’s just about to happen.” Or is it?
The video for “New Organ” comes from Palberta’s Anina Ivry Block in collaboration with Paco Cathcart. Following the track’s murky quest for meaning in a landscape dominated by dubious social connections and advertising, the lo-fi visuals and abstracted approach bring much into question. With the terms of our social lives continually manipulated by those selling us something, it’s hard to know what anything “means” anymore. I guess, you better “just have that sense.”
