Born Yesterday
CAUTION - Arcola TAPE
Cassette only.
Across the album, disorienting vocal delays coalesce into dark layers of synths; blown-out, anthemic guitar chords break apart into wide-open acoustic strums; gently buzzing bass stabs menace under soaring guitar slides and thick, trip-hoppy cymbals. Above it all are the pair’s interlocked vocals, sometimes in unsentimental unison or disparate octaves, sometimes launching off into ascendant harmonies.
“A big part of Caution is singing together,” offers Langdon. While the pair have not been able to do so in person in over two years, their music has brought them closer than ever in a time when intimacy is precious. “The most overarching theme of this album is the feeling of being disconnected,” Langdon offers as a summary.
“Caution has mostly existed in a post-pandemic world and we live in separate places—in that way, I mean disconnected very literally. But aside from that, most of the songs have a blurry yearning for connectivity, with ourselves or with the outside world.” Though the pair writes about cynicism, hangups and hopelessness, through the overriding joy of writing together, Caution’s members generate connectivity in abundance—both for each other, and for those who hear the results. Arcola is proof that a thousand mile separation is no hurdle for two artists whose minds work best when they meet right in the middle.