CVLTS

The lucky 30 people who were able to procure a copy of CVLTS’ Black Hole, Hi Five cassette before it sold out are in possession of a stellar album. CVLTS hasn’t existed for a full year yet, but it has managed to attract the attention of a French record label during its short duration. The band features Josh Thomas of local shoegazers High Diving Ponies and Gaurav Bashyakarla of Boo and Boo Too. The headphone qualities of CVLTS’ music — gently floating keyboard atmospherics, droning tonal shifts — require complete, serene attention. That focus is richly rewarded with audio treasures, such as the children laughing in the background of “Microrangers.” (They have to appear several times before you realize that they’re part of the piece and not outside your living-room window.) The gradual shifts in Black Hole, Hi Five demonstrate that each part of the album is a movement in a larger piece of work. Individual tracks could be extracted and enjoyed on their own, but each one complements or contrasts the parts surrounding it, making the whole much greater than the sum of its parts. It’ll be interesting to see how CVLTS works within the tighter confines of a 7-inch; next up is a split single with Lazy in the coming months.