Album Notes

Don Cavalli's Cryland featuring "New Hollywood Babylon," "Wonder Chairman" and "Vengeance!"

“It's hard enough as it is to learn another language, so give France's Don Cavalli bonus points for nailing Americana roots and blues with a fat-ass hammer. His stripped-down hybrid Cajun swing owes as much to his laptop as it does to his soulful pipes, which recall everyone from Jimmy Cliff to Leadbelly. Cryland is full of upbeat exercises in this cross pollination, from the harmonica bounce of "Vengeance" to the gospel thump of "I'm Going to River." The lo-fi beat poetry of "New Hollywood Babylon" highlights, like the similarly energetic "Gloom Uprising" and most of this effort's other excellent tracks, Cavalli's sickly awesome wah-pedal soundtracking. From front to back, his postmodern folk music is a blast from our mutually repurposed past.” -- XLR8R

“Without a photo you’d swear Cavalli was 60, black, and American southern. With a great syrupy voice like a soul brother Johnny Rivers or Tim Hardin, he puts a funky spin on New Orleans voodoo, as if some harmonica and wah-wah pedal guitarist demon was down on the bayou... Ile-de-France (Greater Paris) may be a long way from the Big Easy, but Cavalli makes it sound easy, with a rough and ready, fuzzy soul...” --Big Takeover

“One thing about Cavalli that I find completely fascinating is the fact that his music - stripped down, lo-fi blues, usually just his voice, drums, and guitar, either clean or fuzzzzzzed out - is clearly from a scene that is completely different than any of the other music I know that's happening in Paris. For example the electronic scene most of us young Americans are exposed to right now is dominated by the descendants of Daft Punk, via our friends at Ed Banger and Institubes. So thank goodness for this differentiation of scenes. This Cavalli business is a sick electric blues record! By a white guy! From France! How weird, and how awesome is that?” -- Music For Robots