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MH-249 Caural - Mirrors For Eyes  Caural returns with Mirrors For Eyes, his second release for Mush, and the proper follow-up to his last cohesive full-length effort, 2002’s Stars On My Ceiling (Chocolate Industries). Continuing to build tracks of intricate sound splices over daring drum programming, Caural pushes the fine art of headphone music forward, with surprises around every beat. Hrishikesh Hirway, of One AM Radio, Paul Amitai, and Jacob Croegaert add stirringly sweet complimentary vocals to Caural’s already beautiful and melodic production on the tracks “Cold Hands,” “Cruel Fate of Spring,” and "Only Time Will Know," while Chicago MC Racecar, of the group Modill, laces “Lady” with a throwback rhyme in the spirit of Native Tongues. The brilliance of the instrumental passages and the standout guest vocal spots solidify Mirrors For Eyes as Caural’s most fully realized album to date. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| Very moving compositions for easy listening - Exclaim! / Something to luxuriate in - Aiding & Abetting / An accomplished and colorful affair - DJ / This record is pure joy - Okayplayer / Total enjoyable experience - Turntable Lab / Very recommended – Word / Its subtle magic is the manner in which it enchants the listener - Igloo |
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| Multi-instrumentalist/producer Zachary Mastoon certainly has an extremely diverse musical background, having studied jazz guitar and improvisation at Wesleyan University under Anthony Braxton before going on to explore Indonesian gamelan and Southeast Asian music. It’s an eclectic palette of influences that’s brought out in full among the lush and diverse explorations offered on Mirrors for Eyes, his second albumfor Mush and his fourth in total. While much of the material here isn’t a million miles away from the sorts of eclectic post-hip-hop constructions of the likes of Daedelus, what really sets it apart from so many other makers of “leftfield” beats is the attention to depth of texture. While beat-driven moments such as the narcotically swooning “Re-experience Any Moment You Choose” traverse similar landscape to the likes of Prefuse 73, the layers of lush texture in the form of trailing broken glass and unexpected sub-bass swells show Caural taking advantage of considerably more width in the frequency spectrum. “Hallucination Broadcast” finds Indian tabla influences rising to the forefront amid blurred vocal tones and drones from Don Rainwater, while the evocatively slowburning “Papillon” would easily sit alongside the Cinematic Orchestra with its rich, majestic Sun Ra Arkestra-esque horns. Easily one of the most consistently gripping and sonically rich instrumental hip-hop listening experiences I’ve had the pleasure of in some time, Mirrors for Eyes is highly recommended to fans of Boom Bip and Dabrye’s more lush excursions. - Grooves |
2XLP/Out Of Print