AAA Vinyl

The Southern California retro-band Calling Cadence signed to Hi-Res Records recently released an eponymously titled debut album recorded, mixed and mastered "the way they used to" make albums: recorded and mixed to analog tape and mastered by Kevin Gray from the analog master tape, and pressed at RTI on 180g vinyl. The cover image of an 8-track tape helps seal the retro-deal as does the music.

Oscar Jesus Bugarin, the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter has a keen ear for the kind of pop melodies heard late 70s-mid 80s in L.A. clubs (and S.I.R. rehearsal spaces) but rarely on commercial radio or charting on Billboard. It's earnest, bouncy, clean and "good-timey" industry showcase type pop music that's "strictly local" if you know what I mean. Bugarin has a strong, enthusiastic vocal style he uses well to sell the breezy pop confections he writes. The song that connects best is "I Don't Know Why" a mid-tempo song of regret hidden midway on side two. It produces some gravity. Most of the rest just bubbles away pleasantly in a nostalgic sort of way as you are reminded of one or another classic of that era.

The band is made up of studio pros and hired hands working the Southern CA music biz studio scene such that there still is. The playing, like all of the singing is skilled and "professional" but most of it flies by expertly filling space without producing any moments of distinction. The more times I listened the more I heard nice but minor production touches. For all intents and purposes the album comes across more like a well produced publishing demo than as an album really meant for commercial release, though side two's opener "Dancin'" produced sufficient excitement upstairs that my wife came running down to hear what was playing. "No one makes music like that anymore" she exclaimed dancing her way back upstairs and she was correct. That song could be the album's earnest highlight. You might enjoy seeing this group in a cruise ship's lounge where the spirited musicianship, high energy and earnestness would keep you engaged, but I doubt in concert you'd be good for more than a few songs.

Like the music, which is more admirable craft than it is notable artistry, the all analog recording and mix is competent and pleasing but it also points out that just because it's AAA doesn't mean it's a sonic spectacular because it's not. It's strictly demo quality—the kind you could produce at many of the "$20 per hour 24 track" studios that advertised in the back of Music Connection magazine in L.A. in the late '70s-early '80s, though the mix is well more skilled. The album is available at Elusive Disc, where you'll read a few "audiophile writer" type raves. Maybe I'm wrong and they're right, so with permission, here's the opening track and first single "Throw My Body". It's a song of personal cleansing and baptism not about a foul deed—as in what the people involved in making this record might wish to do to me!.

"Throw My Body"

(Note: I have known the co-producer for decades and once wrote for his video magazine but that cannot affect an honestly written AnalogPlanet record review).