Caul

    Caul

    Baldwin City, Kansas10 reviews across 8 releases

    ambientdark ambientdarkwaveexperimental
    DiscogsBandcamp

    Caul is the solo dark-ambient project of Brett Smith, begun in the early 1990s while he was playing guitar in Trust Obey. Smith's first recordings grew from experiments with a Digitech RP-1; he issued the initial material himself on cassette before Caul moved into the network of small experimental labels represented by Malignant, Eibon, and Grinder Tool and Die. The music is instrumental and built from drones, processed keyboards, field sounds, piano, and bells. Crucible, the 1995 debut in the archive, made tension from near-inaudible shadows rather than overt shocks. Reliquary placed that approach inside ruined cathedrals and religious ceremony, while Light from Many Lamps made the melodies more prominent, drawing on medieval and eastern colors without losing the bleak electronic mass. Smith's Christian imagery remained central, though the sound was often more contemplative than doctrinal.

    Around 2000, Smith joined John Bergin and Jarboe of Swans in Blackmouth, a collaborative project that produced the album Blackmouth and briefly placed his work in a more vocal setting. Caul itself then returned to extended instrumental forms: Hidden reduced the format to a single 59-minute track, and Muein followed with another hour-long piece for Grinder Tool and Die. In 2003, Eibon issued A Golden Epiphany, remixed and remastered by Smith from his first three releases, while Swan gathered shorter compilation tracks through his Epiphany Recordings label. Smith later contributed to Bergin's animated-film project From Inside, whose soundtrack appeared in 2012. He also released The Shadow Eater in 2018.

    8 releases reviewed