Catt got your loops? Haha, that’s so stupid. I’m leaving.
Ben Catt, that is! That’s the man behind Correspondence, cap C, not all correspondence, small c, because no one can write that many letters, and you’d have to be a millionaire to afford all those stamps. No, Correspondence is Catt’s nom de guerre, and I’m the dad with the dad jokes today apparently. A librarian in real life (awesome!), Catt channels his love for the halls of his local Yorkshire lending institution into his electronic compositions, quietly introducing complex patterns and allowing them to blossom, at times into heady drones (“Slow Tone”) or sparkling crystal refractions (“Flotsam”). Other times, as on “Playing Field,” Correspondence explodes, the fractured melodies becoming full-on orchestral pop in his hands like putty becomes smooshed putty in mine. (I’m still at it.) And then the other librarians are all like, “Shush, Ben! People are trying to read!” And Ben’s all like, “Shush yourself, I’m at home, I’m not at work!” And Wave Recital, the first Correspondence full-length album after a couple EPs, is released into the world, and boy howdy does it just floor all those librarians, because they can’t figure out if it’s too loud or too quiet or just perfect for headphones as you sit in one of the comfy chairs and read a novel, not bothering anybody. And Ben’s mean old boss, the cranky Mr. Gutterspout, harrumphs over to Ben the next day and gruffly acknowledges that Wave Recital may just be the perfect newfangled recording that he and the other employees could enjoy while endlessly navigating the Dewey Decimal System (do they have that in England?), and maybe Ben’s not such a bad guy after all. Because, you know, he’s not bothering anybody. As a spectator to all this as it goes down in my imagination, I can’t help but wonder why this narrative decided to end on a wacky dance number, especially in the middle of a quiet library where everybody was just shushing everybody else a minute ago. But hey, in the end I’m not in charge here — whatever my brain wants to do, I’m just along for the ride.
Wave Recital is out digitally on November 7 via the lovely Audiobulb and November 9 as a self-released limited cassette.
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