KALEIDONAUTS
Kaleidonauts are a transatlantic recording project with members based in the USA and the UK. Its origins can be traced back to a case of writer’s block in January 2007 when Smally was recording The Wheelies “Respun” album and asked the other bands at Cozy Home Records if anybody had any old instrumentals he could use. This was to produce “I Did Acid With Caroline” (later just “Caroline”) with Jon of The Atom from The New Wave Dirt/Dead Canaries.
Throughout 2007 they collaborated on further songs on JOTA’s Dead Canaries project (“Thank My Stars”, “Moths Flying At The Bug Zapper”, “Tree-Sloth”, and “It’s A Crab’s Life” from the album “Critical Mass: Crawling Things Vs. Flying Things”) and continued to create songs for what was initially envisioned as a “JOTA with Smallywheelies” extended EP, to include Jon’s cover of Wheelies tracks and vice versa.
Towards the end of 2007 it became apparent that this peculiar fusion of lo-fi folk and experimental pop psychedelia was becoming a project in its own right. A turning point came when the better songs from an unreleased Wheelies record “7 Hours” (an attempt to write and record a whole album in seven hours) were handed over to the project. Laterally the process of songwriting would be for Smally to write the original song, email mp3′s of individual tracks to Jon, who in turn would break these down, replace parts, sometimes rebuilding the songs from scratch. This continued into early 2008 when they began arranging for other musicians to help out on the album. Most notable perhaps was Jane Gilmore who sang lead vocals on “The Idiot Crying” and “Marvin The Mollusk” and dual-lead vocals on “Our Back Garden”. As well as Jane, Kaleidonauts also featured Katie Saul (backing vox), Tim Kotch from The Hoborchestra (trumpet), Warchalking (guitar & backing vox), Meghan Geiss from The New Wave Dirt (rhythm), and Wind-Powered Rebekah (banjo). A shared love of The Beach Boys underpinned much of the recording – starting from relatively straightforward folk-pop songs, but bringing them to life with a variety of sounds, instruments and techniques including toy pianos, accordians, trumpets, backwards samples, and workplace tools.
In a desperate last ditch attempt to come up with a name for this collaboration Smally finally settled for “Kaleidonauts” – literally translating as “sailors of light” – a combination of kaleidoscope (to reflect the idea of colourful sound) and cosmonaut (from Alexander Trocchi’s “cosmonaut of inner space”). The record itself was called “I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard (Mine Died)” from a snippet of late-night instant messaging that saw Smally fall off his chair with laughter, but sadly its actual contextual meaning has long since been forgotten.
Although both of its main protagonists are a part of Utica-based Cozy Home Records, it was felt that with the volume of contribution from external non-Cozy personnel that it would be more appropriate to release the record as a free download through Daydream Generation Records (now Quixodelic Records). Plans are currently being hatched to write and record a follow up later in 2008, tentatively called “K2″.
Discography
I Do Not Currently Own A Spaniard (Mine Died) LP - digital download – Quixodelic Records/Cozy Home Records, 2008
Marvin The Mollusk Single – digital download – Quixodelic Records, 2008
Listen to “Marvin The Mollusk”:
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