Big Foot. Cayucas

As easily as 'Big TV' of White Lies conquered me as you could read on this blog recently, so hard Big Foot had to work to get appreciated. It just didn't sit with me, no matter how much praise the album received, nor how many favourite comparisons with bands that I really like were made. I just didn't hear it, but it did make me come back to the album. Over the summer a change slowly crept up on me as I did start to hear the fluent harmonies and appreciate the beauty of the tight rhythms in songs like 'High school lover'.

The problem was sort of solved. The jubilant reviews set me on the, well, wrong foot, it's that easy. When someone writes harmonies like The Beach Boys that gets me thinking along the lines of 'California girls' and 'Help me Rhonda' and not 'Surf's up' or the even more difficult numbers Brian Wilson c.s. came up with. And there's no 'Help me Rhonda' is clear sight on Big foot. 'High school lover' really comes closest to that and that really isn't even close. So the music at first seemed as strange to me as the cover of Big foot is.

What there is in sight is the well crafted 'Will "the thrill"'. An odd sounding time signature, a lead guitar playing jaded notes, with slacker vocals like leading the California life of relaxation. And it's at moments like these that the comparison with The Beach Boys falls into place. The hue-hue's in the background are sheer beauty. The same goes for opener 'Cayucos'. Bright lights hidden under a black blanket or at least dark grey.

Cayucas has found the source of old pop music. All the way into the fifties with the likes of Paul Anka, Gene Pitney and Neil Sedaka. 45s that my uncle and aunt played at family parties when I was very little. Music from beyond my concious memory. Music that always sort of was there. 'A summer thing' is music made or sung by Cayucas' members grandparents, made in 2012 and 13. Not that it is all nostalgia on Big foot. Cayucas plays its songs in a way that was unforeseeable in 1957 and recorded in the same way. Nor are the lyrics all lollypops, candy girls or itsie bikinis. Neither is the music only there to please. As I already wrote, Big Foot did not come and sweep me off my feet. More crept up on me and tapped me on the shoulder. Several times.

Thus Big foot holds this secret in itself. A secret that revealed itself to me one step at a time. This small pieces of intense beauty, sometimes disguised in a the form of a song like 'Deep sea'. No real song in sight and neither is the melody of the vocals an easy one to follow. 'Deep sea' is the kind of song that makes me curious about what was there before the band started stripping things away, only sticking to the atmospheric sounds that we got to hear.

At the end of the day Big Foot is an album that I have learned to appreciate. That I still need to be in the mood for. An album that is worthwhile listening to, to dissect layer for layer and find the nuggets of gold that are hidden in the strange rhythms, the "difficult" instrumentations and the held back singing. The nuggets are there for anyone who listens to Big foot. Like in the add for that soft drink, "it's a bit strange, but tasty".

Wo.

You can listen to 'High school lover' here.