Some albums feel like vacation \u2013 each listen a passport to a better place, where tropical drinks run free and blood pressure stays low. Sure, such albums aren\u2019t too challenging nor do they profess to create a new form of music, but damn are they fun, and necessary.<\/p>\n
The band Cayucas, the brainchild of one Zach Yudin and named after a tiny Californian coastal town, has captured relaxation on tape in its debut Bigfoot. Yudin\u2019s sun-drenched effort tinkers in reggae, calypso and 1960s Beach Boys esprit, packaged in echos and bright guitar tones. It carries the familiar warmth of a blanket on a windy day at the beach.<\/p>\n
Opening track \u201cCayucos\u201d (the correct spelling of the town, who knows why the band spells it different) is an homage to the beach town in central California close to where Yudin grew up. A quick paced drum beat is paired with Yudin\u2019s leisurely lyrical bent, with nods to Harry Belafonte, punctuated with high-pitched yelps. It proves a fine segue into \u201cHigh School Lover,\u201d which starts with a clever Peter Gabriel feel before drifting into more typical pop fare. It\u2019s playful and sweet, with the charm you\u2019d expect from a Cali surf bum.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Summer Thing\u201d is a revved up lullaby of seasonal longing \u2013 a music box floats in the background while Yudin and bandmates do their best Brian Wilson impersonation: \u201cSummer\u2019s starting to drift away\/but she don\u2019t want to let it go\/Now you\u2019re watching the rain fall by yourself\/from your bedroom window.\u201d Of course it should be asked: Does summer really ever go away in California?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s the zydeco-inspired \u201cAyawa\u2019kya\u201d for a change of pace, while \u201cBigfoot\u201d borrows some Vampire Weekend thunder to close out the album. These subtle shifts of musical genres would be messy in most circumstances, but it\u2019s well-handled here, with an organization that is obvious. You don\u2019t make a modern album including calypso and zydeco tones without proper forethought.<\/p>\n
Bigfoot isn\u2019t a huge step forward in ingenuity, but it gets the job done, packaging the restful West Coast sunshine for all to enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some albums feel like vacation \u2013 each listen a passport to a better place, where tropical drinks run free and blood pressure stays low. Sure, such albums aren\u2019t too challenging nor do they profess to create a new form of music, but damn are they fun, and necessary. The band Cayucas, the brainchild of one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[423,422],"class_list":["post-1406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-bigfoot","tag-cayucas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1408,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1406\/revisions\/1408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}