Colorado-based group
Candy Claws formed in 2007 and first surfaced with a noisy, glitchy, and gleeful alternate soundtrack to the
Werner Herzog film The White Diamond (
Two Airships/Exploder Falls). Their subsequent albums took inspiration from the wonders of the natural world, with 2009 debut full-length
In the Dream of the Sea Life influenced by marine biologist
Rachel Carson's book The Sea Around Us, and 2010 follow-up
Hidden Lands designed as a musical companion to The Secret Life of the Forest by Richard M. Ketchum. Poet
Jenn Morea found
In the Dream of the Sea Life while searching for music related to
Carson's work, and she reached out to
Candy Claws co-founder
Ryan Hover. Within a couple of months, they decided to collaborate on an album together.
Morea wrote poems telling the story of a girl named Calypso and a white seal named Ceres and their adventures travelling throughout the Mesozoic Era. The three members of
Candy Claws each sang lyrics corresponding to different characters, with
Hank Bertholf as Calypso and
K Hover playing Ceres, while
Ryan Hover represented the Deep Time. Even if it didn't have a complex fantasy storyline,
Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time would be
Candy Claws' most ambitious work based on its vast, overwhelming sound alone. While their previous efforts were enthusiastic but often messy pastiches of abstract psych-pop and dreamy electronic textures,
Ceres & Calypso is a near-perfect fusion of
Elephant 6-style neo-psychedelia and the blown-out heaviness of shoegaze. With help from composer
Bryan Senti, who provided orchestral arrangements created from
Philip Glass' sample library, the group transform the music into a towering wall of sound using extensive compression and distortion meant to evoke the effects of time dilation and fossilization upon being sent back to the Mesozoic Era. While this obscures the album's lyrics, dig deeper and a vividly expressive romance is revealed, as are colorful descriptions of the prehistoric environment. The melodic hooks stand out almost immediately, with the bleary yet bouncy "New Forest (Five Heads of the Sun)" being an instant highlight. Other songs fold in recognizable traces of exotica and baroque pop, and some nearly sound like warped spy movie themes.
Ceres & Calypso is the type of album that establishes a world of its own, inspiring the listener to dive in and devote time to uncovering and interpreting every last detail of the story. After the album appeared in 2013,
Candy Claws disbanded, and
K and
Ryan Hover expanded on the album's mixture of exotica, psychedelia, and dream pop with their subsequent band,
Sound of Ceres.
Ceres & Calypso endured as a cult favorite embraced by audiences who championed albums like
Sweet Trip's
Velocity : Design : Comfort and
Mid-Air Thief's
Crumbling, and was re-pressed multiple times over the years. ~ Paul Simpson