Rockin; Our Turntable: Boy King Islands

By Sarah Cobarrubias in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 10, 2010 6:40PM

Boy King Islands’ debut release has been a long time coming. The Chicago shoegaze duo is comprised of long-time friends Zachary Mastoon (who also plays under the alias Caural) and Jason Hunt, who’ve been collaborating musically for more than sixteen years. Back in 2003, they made the project official, naming it for one of Henry Darger’s fantastical watercolor paintings. While the band seemed to be an abandoned effort, going several years without any results, the duo has finally come through and released their first full-length, Fall.

The 11-song album blends Mastoon’s more conventional instrumentation (guitar, bass, drums, keyboard) and Hunt’s stranger sounds (Mbira, field recordings, ambient noise, harmonica) into a steady flow of warm, dreamy, introspective rock. Even its most upbeat tracks, like opener “Math is Christ,” are hazed over with layers of fuzz and distortion. “Dead friend,” is an expectedly more somber track, featuring discordant guitars, deep, heavy bass, tons of distortion, and whispered vocals lost somewhere in the background. And “Atlantean” is yet another densely textured track, opening with pleasant, harmonic strumming then shifting into wavering, droning guitar and mellow, almost spoken vocals.

Despite its lush texture, the album has a distinct lo-fi, basement-recorded feel, due in part to the excessive distortion. Some tracks seem at times more like amorphous fuzz rather than coherent compositions; for example, the duo’s cover of King Crimson’s “I Talk to the Wind” is so woozy and fuzzed out it could make your eyelids droop. The duo also chose to keep the album sample- and sequencing-free, relying mostly on manual instrumentation recorded through microphones. Fitting to this lo-fi aesthetic, Fall is available in oldfangled cassette format through local cassette label Plus Tapes. But if you prefer an iPod over a tape deck, worry not, because each copy also comes with a digital download copy. Check it out for yourself, and keep your ears open for word of a possible cassette release show.